Tag Archives: Largemouth Bass

Advanced Bass Tactics, Multimedia, Tips and Techniques

HOW TO RIG A STUPID TUBE – REVISITED – BEST JIG HEADS & LURES

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The Stupid Tube is not a new rig, but for some reason, it is one that most of the anglers that are in the know about this rig, don’t usually share it with their fishing buddies or the general public. It got its first major press back at the 2007 Bassmaster Classic where Terry McWilliams used the rig to carry him to a top 10 finish at Lay Lake.

If you wonder why so many anglers are so hush hush about it? Probably because it is so dang effective at catching all 3 species of Bass! In short, it basically is a weedless tube jig, so you get the erratic spiral and glide of your typical exposed hook tube jig, but you can throw it in places you would never dream of with a conventional tube jig.

Fully Rigged Stupid Tube

Make sense? Imagine a Texas rigged tube & an exposed jig head rig, had a super-powered bass catching baby!

Want to learn how to rig this bait and impress your friends and the bass in your local fisheries?

Two options:
1. Check out my original Stupid Tube Blog from 2009
2. For you, new school kids, watch my latest Stupid Tube Rigging Video below

How to Rig a Stupid Tube for Bass Fishing

I have called out my favorite jigs and baits in the video and will below, but essentially, take your favorite 3.5-4″ tube and pair it with a jig head that has a 60-degree flat eye line tie and a hook with a larger than average hook gap. Ordinary tube hooks often fail to have enough bite for this and the tube balls up on your hook & you miss fish.

Rig it up on 8-12lb fluorocarbon and fish it in all the places you wanted to present a tube jig, but would’ve constantly got hung. Skip that tube around trees and docks, drag it through standing timber or snaggy boulders and hold on!

Omnia Fishing
A New Way to Shop for Bass Fishing Tackle

Looking for a new Outdoor Shopping Experience, check out Omnia Fishing’s Lake & Species driven shopping experience. Omnia Fishing

Fun Fishing, Multimedia

Fun fall Bass fishing videos

To me, fall is a time of year, when many of my fellow outdoorsmen & women are lured away to deer stands, fields or blinds. That results in the boat ramps mostly empty for us willing to brave a little inclement weather.

To be honest, outside of that first couple of trips after a harsh frozen winter, this is my favorite time of the year. The great majority of my best days of fishing and most of my biggest bass weighed have come late into the fall season.

Here are a few of my latest fall fishing vids, enjoy!

Epic day of Fat Fall Smallies & Largies!
Fishing for that One Big Bite!

All that being said, I am quite okay with the ramps being quiet, so don’t feel any pressure to follow suit, you probably aren’t missing too much…..

Looking for a new Outdoor Shopping Experience, check out Omnia Fishing’s Lake & Species driven shopping experience.

Omnia Fishing
A New Way to Shop for Bass Fishing Tackle

Tight Lines…..

Fun Fishing, Get to Know'em, Multimedia, Tournament Info

Fall Bass Fishing tourney recaps

The season is wrapping up and my tourney season has likely come to a close, although there is some fun fall fishing still in front of me. The year ended fairly positive but not as great as I had hoped.

My last big tournament was the TBF National Semis out of La Crosse on the Mississippi River where I was hoping to have a strong two days, cash a nice check and punch a ticket the TBF National Championship.

I really enjoyed my few days of practice as Pool 8 is a great place to bass fish and just be an outdoors person. Check out the practice video I put together from my pre-fish.

Day 1 of the tournament started off with a monstrous new PB walleye, you have to check out the video to see that river monster!! At the end of the day, I was a little short of where I wanted to be weight wise but still remained in the hunt to make Nationals. Day 1 tourney recap below.

On Day 2, I made better decisions and improved my weight. I was able to push my way in to check range but failed to be the top qualifier from MN. To learn how I caught my fish and the baits used, check out the final recap video below.

My final derby of the year was a great one, I got to fish for the first time with good buddy Sam Sobi, you may have seen him blowing up on YouTube, if not check out his channel here. And for one of the funnest day fishing this year, check out this video recap where we blasted them for the “W”

Thanks for tuning in, make sure to subscribe here or on my YouTube channel or follow on Instagram to keep up with more fishing recaps and how-to videos that will help you catch more bass & Suck Less!

Tournament Info

2019 MN TBF TOC RecaP – Lake Minnewaska

End of July is usually the time for the Minnesota TBF TOC tournament that qualifies a MN team to participate in the TBD District 9 Semis in late September. From the Semis one each angler and co-angler from MN earns a berth to the TBF National Championship. Last year, I finished 3rd overall and one spot out of be able to head to Nationals, so looking to get back on the horse and make the Semis again this year.

This year’s TBF Tournament of Champions was held on Lake Minnewaska out of Starbuck, MN. I was able to practice the weekend ahead of the tournament, it was my first time on the lake. I found it to be a pleasure to fish and break down, Lake Minnewaska is chock full of bass. I spent most of my practice looking for offshore fish, figuring I could always turn to the bank during the event if needed. Check out my practice recap video for more details on my practice weekend.

Day one of the tournament went pretty well outside the loss of one nice 3lb+ fish lost boat side. I weighed 1 smallie and 4 largies totaling a little over 15lbs to sit in 3rd after day 1, see day one video recap here.

The final day got off to a great start, but I couldn’t find the final upgrade to bring how the W, ending up .1lbs short and finishing in 2nd. Below is a shorter final day video due to GoPro malfunction. Details of how I caught them and links to the gear are all in the video descriptions.

Either way, the main goal was to be heading to La Crosse in September to fish the Semis on the Mississippi River.

Follow this blog and my bass fishing YouTube channel to see upcoming posts and videos on the BASS Nation TOC from Island lake in early August.

Advanced Bass Tactics, Bass Fishing Podcasts, BASS Tour, Fantasy Bass Fishing Corner, Uncategorized

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!

https://youtu.be/QEEWnW7O3vQ

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!

Advanced Bass Tactics, Bass Basics, Bass Fishing Podcasts, Fantasy Bass Fishing Corner, Fun Fishing, General, Multimedia, Product Reviews, Tips and Techniques, Tournament Info, Uncategorized

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!

Advanced Bass Tactics, Fantasy Bass Fishing Corner, FLW Tour, Get to Know'em, Multimedia, Tips and Techniques, Tournament Info, Uncategorized

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.

Chatterbait Tube
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!  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.

Fun Fishing, Multimedia

Fall Bass Fishing Collaboration Beat Down with Bass Utopia

Hey all,

Been a long winter, but I am getting the itch big time this spring.  Compared to last year, I am way ahead of the game, I actually got the boat out fishing on the Mississippi River on April 1st, it ran great and we caught some bass, all in all a good start.  Pictured is one of the best fish of they day.

Pre Spawn Largemouth Bass Mississippi River
Pool 2 Spring Largie

Also, I finally got the bug to do some video editing of previously recorded GoPro footage I had some some drives.  Trying out some new video editing software I just added to my new laptop.

Below is a pretty fun couple of hours of early fall bass fishing with Jason Holmer of Bass Utopia boiled down to 10 mins of highlights.  We only weighed the 3 biggest fish, but the best 5 easily topped 25lbs.

All our fish were caught on flipping jigs and vibrating jigs, my jig of choice was a BassTEK 3/8oz Okeechobee Craw with various trailers.  I also caught several fish later in the day on a Black Blue chatterbait style vibrating bladed jig.

My goal is to produce a lot more video content this year, leave a comment on this blog or on video, let me know what  you want to see.  Maybe even subscribe so you don’t miss any new videos!

Tight Lines – Rich
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Uncategorized

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.

Example of quality Whopper Plopper Fish from Practice
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.  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.

Gull Lake 5.25lbr
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.  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.

Gull Lake Bass Fishing
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
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.

Maybe find more giants like this…..

Multimedia, Tournament Info, Uncategorized

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.

Day 1 Gull Lake BASS Nation TOC
Day 1 Gull Lake BASS Nation TOC

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