** Tournament Ready Bass Boat ** $67,800 Private Party Sale – No Sales Tax on Boat or Motor!
Caymas CX20 w/ Mercury 250hp Pro XS (230hrs) garage kept Motor warranty thru June 2025 (Buyer option to extend) Graphs and electronics negotiable if not interested, just reach out. Contact Info (email = Contact at RichLindgren.com) or DM HellaBass on IG or FB
SPRO USA has some pretty deep discounts, many over 50% on select baits and accesories. Ranging from Bronzeye Frogs to Aruku Shads, RkCrawlers, McStick jerkbaits and much more. Check out their page to see all the deals.
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Arsenal Fishing has a Banger 35% off all non kit and none sale items using code OUTTIMETOSHINE all one word at checkout. Not sure what to get, check out the Arsenal Sun Gloves, Excalibur Pliers, Battle Braid scissors or new Swim Jigs! If you mention HellaBass sent you in the comments, you will likely get a FREE Bonus Gift. SHOP HERE!
Rakuten formerly ebates.com, has some killer deals. They always have 1-5% rebate deals for major retailers, this time of the year, they have special 10-12% rebate deals that stack with any sale. Plus if you are new to signing up, using this LINK you can get a bonus instant $40 back. Outdoor retailers, like Cabelas, Bass Pro, Academy, Dicks Sporting Goods, Walmart and several more to get digital rebates at!
ChaddyBoys,com has some unique sales on specialized Garmin Units and trolling motors that are not on sale at other Big Box Retailers. If you are looking for a specific Garmin product, check out their Black Friday Page!
Tackle Trap has some pretty unique deals on some specialty bass baits and items worth checking out, Shimano Reels, Maxscent, and more, 8 full pages, here is where you can check out their deals.
Tackle Warehouse is in Round 3 of their 20% of Black Friday Deals, see the full page here.
Academy has some pretty solid deals on Electronics as well, like Humminbird, Lowrance and Garmin. Plus deals on Costa and Lews and Bubba. See their full fishing deals here.
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.
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.
Examples of the many recycled lures I have produced from remelting my used baits
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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. Â The other really unique thing about this event, it was an invite only event, so to participate, you had to be selected.
Photo Highlights from Event
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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â Watch this post tourney interview from Classic Bass as well for details on my day.
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.
My first tournament of the year has come and gone, covering what went down in this blog. Â 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. Â 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.
My Best Baits from Tournament & Practice
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! Â 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. Â I ended up 69th place out of 154. Â In the end, it was good to get the boat out and fish a derby early. Â 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. Â 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. Â 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. Â Should be a very exciting tournament to follow, there will likely be spawning fish as well as a few frog fish starting to bite. Â Swim Jigs, Chatterbaits, and flipping techniques should be quite strong as well.
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. Â 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. Â 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.
Example of quality Whopper Plopper Fish from Practice
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. Â 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. Â 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. Â I was in 10th place and 3lbs off the lead going into Day 2.
Gull Lake 5.25lbr
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. Â Then I bounced around hitting key docks and got 2 smaller culls in the closing minutes. Â I ended up with a touch over 15lbs, which propelled me to 4th place and a decent finish and check. Â 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.
4th Place TBF Gull Lake
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.
Big Fish Setup, 1/2oz Okee Craw BassTEK Jig, 20lb Fluoro, Dobyns DX705C
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.
