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Fantasy Fishing Insider: BPT Stage 3
MLF Fantasy Fishing is here or the old FLW Fantasy Fishing is back, well, kind of. This week smack on top of the Bassmaster Classic on Lake Hartwell, the Bass Pro Tour is fishing their Stage 3 event on Lewis Smith Lake.
Lewis Smith is a spotted bass mecca, but water is up and in the bushes, so largies may play. But I still think that in an every fish counts format where all bass over 1lbs 8oz count, Spots will probably carry most top anglers.
Below is a recap of my picks for both the BPT traditional game where you pick 10 best anglers out of 80 and also the predictor game, which is like Prop bets for Bass Fishing.
Hopefully, MLF makes improvements to their fantasy fishing game and this is just a jumping-off point.
How to recycle used BAITS to make soft plastics
What was once old is new again! This old saying could not be more true when it comes to remelting your old used soft plastic fishing lures and turning them into brand new fish-catching baits! Keep reading & watching for a great Make Your Own Lure DIY.
Let’s start with the reasons why you would want to do this:
1. Reduce littering, please never intentionally throw old or used soft plastic baits back into the water. These plastic baits do not dissolve or decompose in the water, never a good idea. Plus fish have been known to digest them and it is unhealthy for them to do so. So regardless, keep them in your boat & dispose of properly one way or the other.
2. If you end up recycling or remelting your baits, this ultimately ends up doing your small part to reduce the impact on landfills, so you can feel good about that.
3. It can be a lot of fun making soft plastic baits and a good way to keep busy when the weather is not conducive to go fishing, you can be in your garage making baits & doing fishing-related activities, which can help you stay sane until your next bite!
4. In the long run, lure making can save you a fair amount of money. Most decent soft plastics cost between $3-7 per pack. So if you buy a cheap mold for $30, you only need to make 5-10 packs of new worms, craws or swimbaits to be money ahead.
5. Lastly, there is great satisfaction in catching your favorite fish on a bait that you made yourself!
If you are interested where to find all the tools needed to get started in remelting your old, here is a list below:
Cheap Senko Molds – https://ebay.to/2WPm1Xt
Misc Cheap Lure & Bait Molds – https://ebay.to/2WOZ5Yd
Soft Plastic Injectors – https://ebay.to/2vVcZNs
Glass Pyrex Cups – https://amzn.to/2UMEotz
Mold Clamps – https://amzn.to/2ybntJf
Infrared Thermometer – https://amzn.to/2QPpeCj
Gloves – https://amzn.to/3ar7Awt
Hot Plate – https://amzn.to/2xvd9f2
Used Microwaves – https://ebay.to/2UGdlA1
Guntersville Fantasy Fishing Picks & More
After a long break, the Bassmaster Elite Series is back to business & fishing this weekend on famed Lake Guntersville. Still, some time to get your Fantasy Team picks in, so check out my latest Fantasy Fishing Edge video to gain some insight to set your team and WIN!
Also, check out a tips & techniques video on how to Muscle up your Neko Rig. Not just for spinning rods anymore, hopefully, this video helps you gain confidence in a new’ish rig that will help you catch more bass.
For those that are long-time Bassin’ Blog readers, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and help me achieve my goal of 1000 subscribers by the end of Summer!
Tight Lines!
Latest Bass Fishing Videos
This blog always seems to fall to a lower priority than my YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Definitely consider following me on any of those platforms to stay more plugged into my fishing activities and catch any fishing tips & nuggets that I pass on through those channels.
I am not giving up on the blog and for now, I am going to leave you with a few of my recent Bass Fishing YouTube videos. I am definitely putting more of my energy into my YouTube content as its something I really enjoy, but the downside it is time-intensive labor of love to produce high-quality original content in video format.
So here is a video recap of my trip to Alabama to fish the BASS Nation Central Regional back in April.
And topically if you live in the middle to the north part of the United States, here is a video covering my favorite bed fishing baits and tips.
Lastly, if you are into fantasy fishing like I am, please check out my YouTube bass fishing podcast series about fantasy fishing, called Fantasy Fishing Edge!
Thanks for visiting!
Classic Bass Champions Tour 2017 Mille Lacs Bass Fishing Tournament Recap – June 10, 2017
Sorry, this blog is about a month overdue. First off, the inaugural Classic Bass Champions Tour event was AMAZING! Classic Bass put on a great event and fishing an MLF (Major League Fishing) style tournament is a completely different kind of pressure over traditional 5 best bass style tournaments. It was also no coincidence they chose Mille Lacs Lake which was also recently recognized the worlds Best Bass Fishing Lake for 2017 by Bassmasters Magazine!
If you have never seen an MLF event on TV or on the Web, basically every legal keeper bass you catch counts, it is weighed by an in boat judge (thanks to Prior Lake HS Bass Club) and there is a live scoreboard all day through an app on your phone. The other really unique thing about this event, it was an invite only event, so to participate, you had to be selected.
It was on honor just to be selected and I was super excited to fish against this field. You can see the results and field list here. I was able to get about 3 days of practice in for this event. My strategy was to check several parts of the lake so I would be prepared to fish multiple areas since they were likely to section up the lake for our event and to prepare for the wind. I also wanted to have baits I felt confident in so I wasn’t second guessing baits when I was looking for fish fast during the event. Because of the high winds and rough water, I didn’t set up my GoPro during the tournament, but you can check out my practice video which is very similar to how I caught them during the actual event.
The event ended up being split into morning and afternoon sessions, where we had to fish the East side of the lake during the first 4 hours and then after lunch (Thank Rocky Reef Resort for Lunch), we fished the west side of the lake for the final 4 hours.
The split caught me a little off guard based on the wind forecast, I made a big run across the lake only to find the area I planned to fish was completely blown out, I only caught two tiny keepers before getting tired of taking waves over the bow and stern of my boat. So I ducked into the closest protected water I could find and I hunkered down and made the best I could out of that area that I didn’t even practice. It turned out to be pretty productive, I was able to catch like 18 or 20 fish for about 43lbs which was good enough to be 3rd out of 24 for the first half. Here is an Instagram Video of the trip back to Rocky Reef at the end of the first half, water was a little rough.
In the second half, I got off to a slow start with only one 2lb fish in like 90 minutes. Finally, I got into an area where I got around some fish and it was calm enough to properly fish them, I made a big surge late to make it back to 3rd after falling out of the top 6 cut. Making the top 6 has qualified me for the Tournament of Champions where I get to fish for a Brand New Skeeter Boat in September. Watch this post tourney interview from Classic Bass as well for details on my day.
I boated smallies on tubes, speed craws, drop shot, hair jigs, but in the end, it was a Menace Grub rigged on an 1/8oz BassTEK Tungsten Agitator head that caught about 80% of my keepers during the event. I fished this on a Dobyns 702SF rod, 12lb Braid w/ 8lb Fluorocarbon Leader.
On the horizon, I am fishing the MN TBF TOC on Pokegama and back to Mille Lacs for the Minnesota BASS Nation TOC, so stay tuned for more posts and videos.
Rich
Mississippi River La Crosse BFL – April 29, 2017 – Bass Fishing Tournament Recap
My first tournament of the year has come and gone, covering what went down in this blog. This is the first time I have ever fished an April tournament in MN or WI and not really fished this part of the Mississippi River in April. For those that hate reading, just jump right to my tournament recap video embedded below.
That being said I have fished several tournaments out of La Crosse including several BFLs. I was able to get two full days of practice the Thursday and Friday before the tournament and 2 hours on Wednesday night. From the time I launched my boat on Wednesday night to tournament morning, the water temps went from almost touching 60 degrees to 47-48 degrees in the area I started the tournament on.
In practice, I had decent success flipping a black blue tube rigged with a 1/4oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping Weight as well as a 3/8oz Bladed Swim Jig paired with a Menace grub worked around wood and grass.
In the end, I could not find the current based staging fish and as cold as the water got, my slack water banks and flats became trash with the rapidly cooling water and it pushed the fish to people like Cade who smashed them! Check out his video to learn something about Mississippi River bass fishing.
Basically, during the tournament, my bites ended up being cut in a third from practice. I ended up 69th place out of 154. In the end, it was good to get the boat out and fish a derby early. On the down side, I caught a really nice head cold.
I really believe that the guys coming for the FLW Tour in a couple weeks will really catch them on the Mississippi River. The cold weather we had, will keep them fish from getting to Post Spawn for them, so they should have a lot of shallow biting fish to catch for their event. I think the weed flats around Stoddard and “The Box” will look and fish like the “Monkey Box” of Lake Okeechobee, other likely popular areas to fish will be Goose Island, Target Lake, & Lawrence Lake in Pool 8 and then Lake Onalaska in Pool 7, a few guys will likely make the run to fish the upper end of Pool 9 as well. Should be a very exciting tournament to follow, there will likely be spawning fish as well as a few frog fish starting to bite. Swim Jigs, Chatterbaits, and flipping techniques should be quite strong as well.
In other news, check out this YouTube Fantasy Fishing Picks web series I started if you are into Fantasy Bass Fishing.
2016 TBF National Semi-Finals – Gull Lake – District 9 – Sept 24/25
Sorry for the delays between blogs, been one of those summers, I intend to back fill a few entries as well.
I qualified for this event through the MN TBF TOC on Mille Lacs Lake in late July. The event ended up being 51 total boats from Minnesota and Wisconsin, in true Pro/Am style money tournament with top boater and co’s from each state qualifying for the TBF National Championship next spring.
Monday thru Wednesday were off limits, so I practiced a few hours late on Thursday after work and Friday until the 3pm off the water deadline. I practiced mostly off shore in practice and felt pretty solid about morning topwaters, transitioning to flipping weed edges to catch a quick 11-12lbs+ and then I would go shallow for a couple upgrades.
Day 1, I hit several spots only to catch a few small fish on deep weed edges and losing one decent fish rushing a fish to the boat. My non-boater had a few decent fish as well. On about our 10th stop we finally hit a group of fish to fill our limits and I got one decent 2.5lb fish. It was about 2hrs left in day and I decided I need to try to find some fish shallow. After a few stops, I finally hit a short stretch of docks where I busted a 3.5lb and 5.25lb pair of studs for Gull on a 1/2oz Okee Craw BassTEK Tungsten Jig, tipped with a Strike King Menace grub.
With about 90 mins to go, I had 3 of the right fish and two 14″ fish. I worked my butt off, caught lots of fish, but only upgraded once for a few ounces, and my co-angler got one decent upgrade as well. My day one weight ended up being 14.9lbs, which is solid for Gull, but wasted opportunity with a 5lbr in the bag and not being able to catch a few more of the numerous 2lb class fish that reside in Gull. I was in 10th place and 3lbs off the lead going into Day 2.
Day 2, the fish came quicker, but they were even smaller for me, my co-angler once again caught fewer fish, but seemed to get a few of the right bites on a Flick Shake Green Pumpkin stick worm, while I continued to flip a Tube Craw on a 3/4oz Tungsten weight.
I went shallower a little earlier on day 2, but took longer to connect with quality fish, but I ended up getting on a stretch where I culled everything in my well in about 45 minutes. Then I bounced around hitting key docks and got 2 smaller culls in the closing minutes. I ended up with a touch over 15lbs, which propelled me to 4th place and a decent finish and check. The leader only weighed 14lbs on day 2, which left the door open, and made me realize even more, I missed my chance to win on Day 1.
In retrospect, I think if I would have committed to shallow for 8hrs each day, I think I would have gotten the extra bites to be right there for the win, but that is fishing and easy to see looking back.
This is the end of my tournament season, hoping to get in some fun fall fishing in the coming weeks and fish well into November like last year.
Maybe find more giants like this…..
MN BASS Nation TOC – Gull Lake – September 2015
Talk about a blog long overdue, this tourney ended the Friday after Labor Day. After a disappointing BASS Nation Divisional event on Vermillion, I was anxious to get back on the path back to BASS Nationals and possible another shot at getting to the Bassmater Classic.
After winning the TBF TOC on Gull earlier in the year, I did have a little confidence coming into the tournament. I only practiced 3 of the 4 official days allotted, saving some PTO time and being home for first day of kid’s school. All in all, I had a pretty rough practice, spending the majority of my time deep and checking occasional shallow areas, I think I only got a single 3lb bite in 3 days of practice. While not a great practice, it was actually better then the practice I had for the TBF and that turned out just fine.
I had one area that I was pretty confident that would produce a decent limit on a topwater bait or by flipping the edges of the deep weed edge. On Day 1, that spot gave up a few small fish on chatterbaits and crankbaits, but nothing that I was looking for. The day continued, mixing in some offshore with some shallow and ultimately all my fish came shallow skipping a 3/8oz Bluegill Colored BassTEK Tungsten Flipping jig around boat docks. My best weighed 11.32lbs and had me hovering somewhere around 33rd place out of 188 anglers and after 2 days the top 20 would advance to Lake Guntersville in April 2016.
Going into 2nd day, I felt like I need to have about 12lbs to move up enough to make the top 20. I started out offshore and alternating again and did get once decent keeper flipping a tube craw in 8ft of water, but ultimately leaned on the dock pattern most of the day to fill a limit and catch a few decent 2lb fish. About mid day, I caught a fish punching a shallow milfoil mat around some wood and it was a nice upgrade at the time. I took that as a clue and ran that pattern for a bit and culled most of my early limit almost calling my shots for about 90 minutes. Check out the following video to see some of the fish caught this way. These punching fish all came in Big Bite Bait Tube Craws in Green Pumpkin with a 3/4oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping Weight, 20lb Sunline Fluoro on a Dobyns 765 Flipping Stick.
Havaing a box full of 2lbr mid day on this pattern, I was feeling decent knowing I really just need one more good bite. I spent the rest of the day shallow chasing that bite, but it never materialized. I ended up with 10lbs on day 2 and remained in about the same place as I stared the day, 34th place. Kudos to the angler that caught them and are moving on to Guntersville. I fished very clean and my weight reflected what I caught during practice, just never got those key bites I did in the TBF tournament earlier in the summer. One slight bright spot, is our bass club Twin City Bass won the team portion of the event for the 3rd year in a row and Brian Bengston is moving on to Guntersville to represent our club.
This was pretty much my last tournament of the year, except for participating in a Minnesota Match Fishing event that was a lot of fun as well. I did do quite a bite of fun fall fishing in October and early November, I will have some videos coming soon on that, in the mean time, check out my Instagram account to see some of my best catches and 15 second fish catch videos.
Drop a comment if there are things you would like to see on my blog this winter.
Thanks!
Rich
BASS NATION NORTHERN DIVISIONAL – LAKE Vermilion 2015
This was the tournament I had been thinking about since about half way on my drive back from the National Championship last November. Once you get to BASS Nation Nationals and you are one step from the Classic, it really creates a burn to get back and finish the job.
Planning and prepping, my game plan going into this event was to focus on main lake offshore smallies. In my mind, if I found 15-30 spots with quality fish potential, I could rotate through them hitting the sweet spots and creating a big bag every day and possibly supplement with a few shallow fish as needed.
I had 4 days of practice before the event, after two full days fishing the tops of the prime pieces of structure, I was really struggling. With the mid-summer cold front, it really seemed to knock these fish off the edges onto isolated cover and they really were not schooled up in very many places. With my final two days I shifted a focus for more shallow isolated cover. I had two days of practice doing that and caught some really nice fish and pulled on many more.
My game plan revolved around hitting a few key offshore spots early to get a few solid bites early and then grind the rest of the days on specific shallow targets. Day 1, I had a first flight draw and Zach from Indiana, who didn’t get much practice in, so he was willing to go along with my game plan. After a 2 plus hour fog delay, we got to my starting spot and Zach got a good fish on a Big Hammer swimbait on my starting spot and I got a walleye on a tube. We ran more spots, I picked up 3 small fish on tubes and one 3lbr, but I opted to throw back a 13″ smallie due to bleeding. About mid day, I could tell the bite was super tough and I went to every spot I knew just to try to fill a limit, both shallow and deep, chasing largies and smallies and only Zach got one more keeper on a wacky senko. What a disaster, starting with 3 fish for 6lbs and change, National dreams DEAD!
Many guys struggled, but the leader for Minnesota Corey Brant sacked almost 17lbs and I was dead last on the MN team. My day 2 partner was from WI and he zeroed on day 1, we agreed to work together and just try to catch solid limits for team weight. My starting spot produced 4 fish for me and 2 for Kyler and one of mine was close to 4lbs. We made a run through my spots working west towards Kyler’s fish. His grass fish didn’t go, but I gave some advice to him and we both ended up with limits and culling from Norwegian Bay. I ended up with a modest 12lb bag and moved up on spot on the team. The good news, Minnesota had grown our lead from about 18lbs on day 1 to close to 50lbs on day 2. With our sights set on the Three Peat of winning this event for 3rd consecutive year and defending our home turf!
Day 3 I drew Jim B from Wisconsin, agreeing we were both out of contention, we decided to have a fun and just go fishing. I was not able to get on my starting spot, but my second spot had some good smallies busting on the surface. We both got 3lb class fish to commit to topwaters and also picked up some keepers on jerkbaits.
Working west under foggy conditions, I filled my limit and culled few times fishing both deep and shallow. Going to Jim’s water in the last few hours, we both ended up culling a few more times. I had almost 13lbs and Jim got the better bites to get 14lbs.
Minnesota extended our lead and took home another boat, kudos to a great team and a bunch of new friends. Special congrats to my buddy and roommate Corey Brant who will be representing MN at Nationals on the Ouachita River in November!
My best smallie baits were a Bone Colored topwater and green pumpkin tubes rigged stupid style on a 3/16oz BassTEK Agitator head. When I went west and fished shallow the best baits were 3/8oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping jig in crawdad with menace grub trailer and in weedier areas, I flipped a Tramp Stamp Sweet Beaver on 1/2oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping weights.
Check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel to see some of my fish catching highlights from both last year’s TOC and this years practice and tournament. I will get the video edited and posted in a few weeks!
No rest for the weary, this week I will be at Gull Lake near Brainered for the BASS Nation MN TOC, looking to start the path back to Divisionals and Nationals again….
