This time, I had gone to Alamitos Bay to catch some Halibut. It was at low tide in the early morning so I decided to use some surface lures such as the FM110 & PT100. I continued to cast going from the jetty to beachside, but got nothing. I then changed my lure to a gold color and kept casting again along the beachside, but didn’t get anything. The tide started to rise and thought my chance finally came!! I changed my lure to a DD to aim at a deeper range!! Unfortunately the wind started blowing pretty strong and created raging waves. The casting lure couldn’t go further than the aiming point so I had to end it there. I started heading back and on the way I stopped by an Anglers center tackle shop and coincidentally ran into some friends of mine, H & T! They were planning on going Bass fishing in the afternoon so I decided to join them. It was going to be at a man-made pond located at a park. This will be my very first experience Bass fishing at a man-made pond! And we are using a bicycle to travel along the pond!! This is definitely “Survival fishing”!!!
Once we arrived there, there were several people already having a good time Bass fishing. And they were using Topwater baits!! Also!! I found someone using our Lucky Craft Sammy! That made me pretty happy!
I started off using our new product, the Fat Smasher 55 to test it out as well… I was convinced that this product will no doubt be popular this year.
While we were moving with our bikes, T gets a bite!! He caught a 47cm Bass with a Spinnerbait!! And even after that, he caught another nice size Bass!! Later on, I finally got a bite… when I slowly retrieve the Spinnerbait (Redemption 3/8 in Chartreuse) parallel to the bottom part of the bushes surrounding the pond, I would get a slight bite… Trying to remain calm, I would go along with the bite and succeeded in catching a small size Bass!! I retrieved before it’d go into the bushes and at that moment!! The Bass jumped!!! It totally took me off guard… the Bass got away… Because I got so use to Saltwater fishing, I completely forgot most of the important basic techniques in fishing. What an unfortunate result.
We would talk over the phone telling each other our situation and which lures other people used to catch some fishes. I really felt like I got to experience a very valuable time Bass fishing and learned a lot. H got couple bites and caught 2 Bass that day. I think this pond has some high potential and I’m very excited to come back again.
Here is nice interview with Lucky Craft pro Brent Ehrler on Wired2Fish.com. Brent talks about his great season this year and his career. Check it out!!
Emory, TX – If you were to tag Takahiro Omori’s 2011 Elite Series season, it could fittingly be dubbed as “A Tale of Two Halves.” Battling tendonitis in his left hand throughout much of the off season, the 2004 Classic champion got off to a rough start by recording finishes of 87th and 89th in two of the first three tournaments of the year. takahiroomori.com
Another great day at Anglers Inn on Lake El Salto in Mexico. Today, I had the opportunity to fish with the American Modern Insurance “Reel Big Catch” contest winner Mike Teague. We had a great time and El Salto continues to live up to its reputation with lots of bass between five and nine pounds being taken by our group daily! Joe Thomas Blog
Cloudy skies, sunny skies, rain, wind, temperature are a just a few of the things discussed during this Classic Patterns footage. Listen as some of the Lucky Craft Pro Staff talk about how they adjust to changing conditions.
I put an exclamation point on a sucky year at Wheeler.
This had already been one of my toughest years on tour when I had to go a make it even tougher with a bonehead mistake. In case you hadn’t heard; I had to turn myself in after weigh-in on Saturday at Wheeler for finding a sixth fish in my livewell. skeetreeseinc.com
PAA Table Rock Lake – Branson, MO
June 23-25, 2011
Day 1 Results: 35th Place – 5 fish – 9.46lbs
Day 2 Results: TBD
Day 3 Results: TBD
Totals: TBD
Final Position: TBD
Well, the regular season is over. Next up is the inaugural All-Star postseason event, which is comprised of two standalone tournaments featuring the top eight anglers from the regular season points standings and four anglers voted in by the fans. Lucky for me, I’m one of the eight. Ever since my win at Lake Murray it seems like every decision I make is right. I know I’m fishing with a lot less pressure due to my automatic classic birth awarded to each event winner this year on the EliteSeries. It was definitely the turning point of my season.
The Carolina Clash event on Lake Murray was right at the tail-end of the blue-back herring spawn so there were not nearly as many active fish as we had seen at some of our previous blue-back dominated events. Everyone knew the morning bite was crucial and I was no different. Unlike a lot of guys I didn’t want to waste much time chasing down schools of fish so instead I found two key points within eye-sight of each other and camped their each morning. If I saw the fish breaking thesurface on the other spot it was a quick ride over to them. This approach allowed me to maximize my fishing time. When choosing a bait to imitate a blue back I always start with the Lucky Craft Gunfish 110 in the Ghost Shad Color. During that tournament I caught a big one each day on it in the first hour and then switched to my double fluke rig for the remaining low light time. I had a ton of giants blow up on that bait and it was really crucial I land at least one fish every time the bass started crashing the surface. After the sun came out I switched to a green pumpkin Zoom Trick Worm on a little shakey head with 8 pound test fluorocarbon line. I found myself fishing much shallower than most other anglers. All of my fish were in about three feet of water. That was agreat feeling winning that tournament not far from where I grew up.
After that event things just came together for me. For example my next event was the last BASS Southern Open at Douglas Lake in Tennessee. That tournament I found an old roadbed in the back of a creek that had the fish stacked up on the edge of it in 10-12 feet of water. I caught all my fish off that road bed on a Lucky Craft CB-D12 in the Chartreuse Shad color. I ended up finishing 22nd and landing in 9th spot in the Southern Open points standings.
I made the trip straight to my next Elite Series event on the Arkansas River. I’ll tell ya, the weights really didn’t show how good the fishing was. There were a lot of bass caught but the 15 inch fish were very scarce. I must have caught a limit of 14 inchers that weighed over 12lbs, all of those fish had to be thrown back and it really hurt. In practice I had found some good backwater areas where I caught fish on the Lucky Craft G-splash popper bait. The first day of the tournament produced a lot of bass but it was just small fish after small fish and I knew I’d have to make a change. On the way back into weighin I did manage to catch two keepers fishing rock jetties that provided a current break for the bass. That kind of fishing is where the Lucky Craft RC 2.0 shines. My primary color was the black/chartreuse in really shallow water. After such a lackluster day I decided not to mess with the locks and instead stayed local and fished new water. In retrospect that might have been my best decision all year. Not only did I catch a good bag of fish cranking the RC 2.0, but I also managed to avoid late penalties incurred by the majority of anglers who I fished near on day 1. That was a really tough break for those guys, but really fortunate for me that I didn’t get stuck down there. The last day I only managed three, but it was tough for everyone and I finished 38th.
My last tournament was just a few days ago and it was primarily dominated by the deep water fisherman. I went into the event with my mind set on making the all-star event and sitting in eighth place I was certain I’d need a good tournament to make that happen. Like everyone else I did catch some good fish offshore in practice, but I found it too crowded out there and watched as everyone else found the same spots I had. That made up my mind for me that I’d stay shallow and try to break the 12lb hump that would plague most anglers who didn’t head for deep water. The first day of the tournament I had all my weight in the first hour and neverupgraded all day. I did go check my deep water spots, but arrived to see Skeet Reese and eventual winner David Walker all over it. On day 2 I had a good boat draw and knew I could be the first one to that spot, but that’s not really my style so instead I went back shallow. Day two was really windy and overcast whichhelped my bite tremendously. I swam a jig and threw a G-splash around bank grass finding my bite to be phenomenal later in the day when I boated two four pounders and a two and half pound fish. That was enough weight to get me into the final day and ultimately finish 24th.
This all leads me to where I’m at now. After the entirety of the season I placed 7th overall and couldn’t be happier. I’ll be attending the postseason and I’m truly excited to have an opportunity to fish to win. There should be some really neat extracurricular activities at the events and of course Alabama always brings in huge crowds for our events.
I’ll be sure to fill you in right after we conclude our tournament, wish me luck!
