All posts by hellabass

Kentucky Lake Fantasy Fishing Group Winner!

Congratulations to Jason Mayer from IN, he was the highest scoring member of my Bassin’ Blog group for ESPN Fantasy Fishing at the Kentucky Lake event.  He is our first threepeat winner on the Bass side!!!  Somebody needs to start winning prizes other then Jason & Brad.

Jason said it was the same line-up he used for the past two tourneys, but he would be changing it up for this Mississippi river tournament.

For Jason’s efforts, he has won a bag of Tru-Tungsten finesse worms, should be great for catching those tough Indiana bass!!  



Thanks to Tru-Tungsten for helping out with the prizes.

Tru-Tungsten - Discover the Feel!

Its not too late to join my group, prizes will be awarded at every tournament and year end. 

Best regards,
The Commissioner
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

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All About Bass – Episode 1 – Part 3 of 4

The Inaugural episode (webisode) is a 20lb Minnesota Bass Opener Challenge on a small south metro lake.  I invite my buddy Josh Douglas to help me catch 20lbs in 7 hours of tournament style fishing.  You may remember I blogged about my Bass Opener outing here.  There are 4 segments to this first episode, here is a link to the first 2 segments.  Embedded below is Segment 3.

Segment 4 will be coming soon, so check back to the blog often.  Or better yet, consider signing up with Email or RSS subscription so you never miss an episode!  Email subscription can be found on the upper left corner of this page in the side bar.

If you are looking for Ring Frys, find them here!

You can also find these videos by searching YouTube or checking out MN Sun Newspapers.

RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

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Green Lake Practice Report

This is my first attempt at a mobile blog post, so it will be short. Art and I got on the lake around 8am, started shallow caught some decent fish on soft plastics & swim jigs. We then hit some mid-depth areas & found another pod of decent fish. From there it got super slow, hope things are better this weekend.

Tight lines,
Rich
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Setting a FLW Fantasy Fishing Lineup for Kentucky Lake

Kentucky Lake is in a big time upward cycle right now and kicking out a ton of fish and some real big ones.   Both big smallies & largemouth could likely factor in during this event. 

Fishery Details:

Type of water: Kentucky – Tennessee River (TVA) impoundment,
Barkley – Cumberland River impoundment
Surface area: 160,000 acres for Kentucky, 58,000 acres for Barkley
Shoreline: 2,064 miles for Kentucky, 1,004 for Barkley
Average depth: 20 feet for Kentucky, 12 feet for Barkley
Max depth: Approximately 60 feet on both lakes
Primary structure/cover: rock, grass, bushes, lay-downs, points, off-shore ledges, brush
Species: largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass
Length minimum: 15″ for largemouths, 18″ for smallmouths, 12″ Spotted bass 

All indications is that this tournament will be a full on ledge bite. 

Here are my other anglers to watch:
Dan Moorehead
Jim Moynagh
George Geane, Jr.

Basically I am sticking with the strategy to keep littering my lineup with anglers that are hot right now and have past experience and lots of wins & top 10’s this week.

Finally, my FLW fantasy fishing picks:

 

Kentucky/Barkley Lake Roster Tour Stats
  Selected Anglers Events Earnings Missed
Cuts
Avg
Finish
Top
3
Top
10’s
Top
25’s
Wins
 1  TERRY BOLTON       84 $ 422,100 77 65 2 7 25 0
 2  ANDY MORGAN       90 $ 747,854 75 48 3 13 31 1
 3  DAVID DUDLEY       88 $ 1,348,100 71 43 7 16 35 2
 4  DAVID FRITTS       79 $ 836,548 64 69 7 14 21 5
 5  BRENT EHRLER       31 $ 789,000 26 47 1 5 13 1
 6  RAMIE COLSON JR       29 $ 143,000 26 87 0 2 7 0
 7  DAVID YOUNG       34 $ 84,200 33 81 1 1 4 0
 8  MICHAEL BENNETT       32 $ 1,401,850 26 52 3 6 13 2
 9  STETSON BLAYLOCK       34 $ 302,975 28 48 3 6 12 2
 10  SHINICHI FUKAE       38 $ 645,650 27 47 2 10 17 2

It’s not too late to join my group, prizes will be awarded at every tournament and year end.

Sign up today!
Play Fantasy Fishing for Millions

Best regards,
The Commissioner
RichLindgren.com 
Bass Fishing Today
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

Setting an ESPN Fantasy Fishing Line-up for Mississippi River – Fort Madison

The Mississippi River is one of the great bass fisheries in this country, but this particular section (Fort Madison) I think is under a little bit of hard times from last year’s flooding.  This time of year, fish should be really starting to gang up in pads and eel grass edges, but from the sounds of it, not much of it has grown back from last summer.  So if you can find some good stretches, they could be loaded, but also very crowded.  A strong wood flipping bite could play as well.  Either way, its nice to see the Elites visit the upper midwest for a change, should be a very exciting tournament, they will catch plenty of fish.  Look for Swimming Jigs to be a big player here.

I am making some fairly serious changes this week to try to make some big moves, Alton Jones had to go, he was just too safe.

Here are a few guys that I think would be solid fantasy fishing picks that are not on my team.  Chris Lane, Tommy Biffle, Iaconelli and Jami Fralick.  The breakdown on my team is as follows:
KVD – He catches them every where, probably have a solid spinnerbait pattern going.
Matt Herren – For the money probably on my roster until the bitter end, should have a solid finish, strong shallow water angler.
Skeet Reese – To good to cut loose, should catch plenty of bass slinging Lucky Crafts around rocks & wood.
Dean Rojas– Come on Kermit, don’t let me down.  Hoping the bass will eat a frog even if there is no grass.
Bill Lowen– C’mon wood flipping bite, that is Lowen’s deal!

So here are my Fort Madison picks, two signifigant changes from KY Lake:

Rich’sRoster
Angler 1 Angler 2 Angler 3 Angler 4 Angler 5
Kevin VanDam
Kalamazoo, MI
Skeet Reese
Auburn, CA
Dean Rojas
Lake Havasu City, AZ
Bill Lowen
North Bend, OH
Matthew Herren
Trussville, AL
MKT: $24.9 (+0.4)
LKD: $24.5
MKT: $24.2 (+0.4)
LKD: $23.8
MKT: $21.1
LKD: $21.1
MKT: $17.3
LKD: $17.3
MKT: $14.0 (+0.9)
LKD: $13.1

Its not too late to join my group, prizes will be awarded at every tournament and year end.

Best regards,
The Commissioner
RichLindgren.com 
Bass Fishing Today
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

Beaver Lake Fantasy Fishing Group Winner!

Congratulations to Tricia Heinecke from New Richmond, WI; she was the highest scoring member of my Bassin’ Blog group for FLW Fantasy Fishing.

Brief email interview with Tricia and this is what she had to say on her strategy:
“My husband & I have Players Advantage.  My husband made list of fishermen and my 5 year old son helped to pick his mommy’s team!  Wish I could have had a couple exactas for a really big prize!! ”

For Tricia’s efforts, he has won a 5/16oz Threadfin Shad Secret Weapon Lure Sidearm Spinnerbait and will get a 30% off promo code to order anything he wants in the Secret Weapon Armory!

I am sure Tricia & her family will catch plenty of bass with this great spinnerbait!  Thanks to Secret Weapon Lures for helping out with the prizes.
Secret Weapon Lures
Its not too late to join my group, prizes will be awarded at every tournament and year end.

Sign up today!
Play Fantasy Fishing for Millions

Best regards,
The Commissioner
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

Presenting “All About Bass” – An Online Bass Fishing Show

If you have been reading this blog and paying attention, I have been hinting & eluding to the possibility of some new video content.  Well here it is!  “All About Bass” will be an online bass fishing show that I will be working on, this blog will be one of many places you will be able to view it.   Check out My YouTube Channel!!!

The Inaugural episode (webisode) is a 20lb Minnesota Bass Opener Challenge on a small south metro lake.  I invite my buddy Josh Douglas to help me catch 20lbs in 7 hours of touranment style fishing.  You may remember I blogged about my Bass Opener outing here.  There are 4 segments to this first episode, posted below are all the segments. 

UPDATED JUNE 12
Part 3 Added for your Viewing Convience:

So what do you think?  We learned a ton from this first shoot, we already have ideas to improve the audio and other things.  I would appreciate comments after you have watched.  Segment 4 will be coming soon, so check back to the blog often.  Or better yet, consider signing up with Email or RSS subscription so you never miss an episode!

UPDATED JUNE 19

Part 4 – “The Weigh-In” Added for your Viewing Convience:

If you are looking for Ring Frys, find them here!

You can also find these videos by searching YouTube or checking out MN Sun Newspapers or check out My YouTube Channel!

RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

Setting an ESPN Fantasy Fishing Line-up for Kentucky Lake

Kentucky Lake is one of the great bass fisheries in this country.  This time of year, fish should be really starting to stack up on ledges.  Sounds like water levels have dropped, so flipping bushes probably won’t play much, but you never know.

By the way, you need to get it in by tomorrow 8am central, this tournament actually starts on a Wednesday and ends on Saturday to allow travel time to Iowa next week. 

The next 3 events Kentucky Lake, Mississippi River, & Lake Oneida are all vastly different fisheries, so trying to set your lineup to fit all 3 may be a bit of a challenge.

Here are a few guys that I think would be solid fantasy fishing picks that are not on my team.  Kelly Jordan, Kevin Wirth, Edwin Evers & Timmy Horton.  The breakdown on my team is as follows:
KVD – With a 3rd & a 1st last two June events on KY Lake, he is a lock.
Matt Herren – For the money probably on my roster until the bitter end, should have a solid finish, hopefully he does not get caught chasing shallow fish and misses the ledge bite.
Skeet Reese – To good to cut loose, should catch plenty of bass slinging Lucky Crafts on Ledges
Alton Jones– Hot hand & should have solid finishes all 3 events.
Jami Fralick– Hopefully Jami can repeat last summer’s Kentucky success both on Elite Series and Open tourney, I am hoping he can produce on the Mississippi river as well, but he is for sure gone before Oneida.

So here are my Guntersville picks, just one change from Smith Mountain:

Rich’s Roster
Angler 1 Angler 2 Angler 3 Angler 4 Angler 5
Kevin VanDam
Kalamazoo, MI
Skeet Reese
Auburn, CA
Alton Jones
Waco, TX
Jami Fralick
Martin, SD
Matthew Herren
Trussville, AL
MKT: $24.7 (+0.2)
LKD: $24.5
MKT: $24.0 (+0.2)
LKD: $23.8
MKT: $21.8 (+0.2)
LKD: $21.6
MKT: $15.8
LKD: $15.8
MKT: $13.8 (+0.7)
LKD: $13.1

Its not too late to join my group, prizes will be awarded at every tournament and year end.

Best regards,
The Commissioner
RichLindgren.com 
Bass Fishing Today
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

Mississippi River – Bassmasters Weekend Series Tournament #1 – May 31, 2009

Based on my practice, I realized that winning this event would take some good fortune and the bass in my areas to grow, but I thought if I fished hard and fished clean I could put together a respectable finish and have chance to cash a check.   My practice had not been stellar, but I had found a couple of areas holding fish both on Lake Pepin and down in the top of Wabasha backwaters; plus a few back up spots if I needed a fish near Red Wing.  This tournament was a little unique, because I had never fished an event that launched out of Everts Resort on the north end of Pool 4 before.

After running south through the Wisconsin channel, I started on a rocky area of Lake Pepin, my partner had one fish on that looked to be a keeper on a spinnerbait, other then that we caught several close but short fish on finesse jigs and Fork Craws.  From there I went to my second spot on Pepin, my partner caught 1 on his spinnerbait and another on his jig.  I ended up catching 1 quality fish on a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten PB&J jig tipped with a Green Pumpkin Rage Chunk, plus several other smaller fish.

We hit another area on the way down to Wabasha, caught several fish that were barely keepers or short on jigs & tubes, nothing we kept.  It did not take long flipping a steep bank with some wood on it in Wabasha that I caught a quality largemouth on Black/Blue Crazy Legs Chigger Craw rigged with a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten Flipping Weight and 4/0 Super Strong Youvella Hook.  The bite was pretty slow, but when I got a fish it seemed to be decent.  I ended up catching 2 decent smallmouth on my TT jig and got a 3.71lb largemouth on a chatterbait that I had rigged up special the night before.


Tru-Tungsten Jig was my work horse & chatterbait score my kicker fish!

I had caught some decent fish on a regular chatterbait with the split tail in practice.  Because I felt I would need some bigger bites in the tournament, I upsized the trailer to a full white super fluke to give a bigger presence in the water.  Its nice when a plan pays off like that! It ended up being the 3rd biggest fish weighed on the boater side.  All my better fish came on baits that had a some moved a lot of water in the pretty dirty water that we had.

We spent some time around Red Wing trying to find my partner his 3rd fish, he had lost a couple earlier and could not get that last keeper bite at the end of the day, but we still had a great time!

I ended up with a mixed bag for 12.03lbs in 12th place out of 82 boaters, which got me a nice little check.  Kudos to my buddy Josh Douglas for winning the event with over 15lbs, by finding some really nice smallmouth!  Watch his blog for details.  I am anxious for the next tournament on June 28th, in the mean time i have a couple club tournaments to keep me busy!

Tight Lines,
RichLindgren.com 
Rich’s Bassin’ Forum
Bass Fishing Tackle Blog

Bass Tackle Depot - Free Shipping $50 Orders - Great spot for hard to find Bass Fishing Gear!! 

SECRET WEAPON RECOIL RIG TEARDROP GIVES ACTION

SECRET WEAPON RECOIL RIG TEARDROP GIVES ACTION

Last year Rodney Long snapped the fishing world to attention with the introduction of his truly revolutionary fishing system, winning Best of Show at the Bassmaster Classic. Today, the Secret Weapon® Recoil Rig Teardrop Field Kit™, provides everything the angler needs to learn this new technique and start catching more and bigger fish the first day.

Secret Weapon’s patented Recoil Rig is not a lure; it’s a new rig and technique that can be used to make any soft plastic lure more active and more effective. The heart of this rig is Secret Weapon’s patented SpecTastic™ material – an elastic core with an outer sheath of strong Spectra® fiber. Thin and pliable enough to stretch three times its original length yet strong enough to cast or flip heavy weights without breaking, this rig makes soft plastic lures follow each subtle motion of the rod tip in every direction. And it can do this while remaining in one place – making it ideal for targeting bedding fish, those hanging tight to docks and other cover, or heavily pressured fish that need a little extra coaxing to open up and say “Ah!”

When attached between a lure and weight drop shot style, the Recoil Rig gives new life to any soft plastic bait – worms, minnows, craws, grubs, you name it. No special hooks or knots are needed, and plastics can be rigged weedless for heavy cover. It goes beyond the popular technique of drop shotting by producing life like action in every direction instead of just up and down. The Secret Weapon Recoil Rig can also be used to great effect when conditions call for Texas or Carolina-rigged plastics. The 15-lb. test shock cord allows the sinker to be dragged across the bottom, yet you can stop and work the lure in place when you see fish or get near likely ambush points. Unlike traditional rigs – where working the lure means pulling it away from fish-holding structure – the Secret Weapon Recoil Rig keeps the action right in the strike zone. Fish aren’t used to seeing a bait move this way – unless it’s real and alive – and that gives you a competitive edge.

These rigs stand up to hours of hard use and can be used repeatedly. According to Bassmaster Elite Series angler Randy Howell, “I used to say the Recoil Rig is like a drop shot on steroids, but it’s more than that. It’s the first thing to come along in quite some time that improves the way we can make fish bite.” Each Secret Weapon Recoil Rig Teardrop Field Kit includes 20 five-inch SpecTastic shock cords, six 1/2-ounce teardrop-shaped sinkers with Line-lock swivels for fast attachment, six Line-lock swivels for attaching the rig to your fishing line, and a special set of instructions to help anglers get the most out their new “secret weapon.” The entire kit retails for just $9.99.

Deadly for bass, the Secret Weapon Recoil Rig can also be used with soft plastic lures of all sizes to target any freshwater or inshore saltwater game fish.

Anglers and fishing tackle retailers can learn more about the innovative Secret Weapon Recoil Rig Teardrop Field Kit – as well as the company’s full line of proven spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, spoons, soft plastics and other tackle kits – by contacting Secret Weapon Lures
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