On top of trying out how to catch a few bass tomorrow, I have been laboring over whether or not to sacrifice valuable fishing time by locking through one or even two locks to try to get away from the crowd. By my calculations, if I lock twice into pool #3, I will only have 3 1/2 hours to fish at the most.
Joe Thomas Blog

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Congratulations to Michael Cummings for his big win at the Oakley Big Bass Tournament. The tournament was held April 30th – May 1st on Lake Norman. Cummings was fishing with a Kelly J Jr. prop bait in chartreuse shad, twitched it twice near a dock and the fish just sucked it under.
The Daily Crank

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Kelly Jordon talks about the Lucky Craft Slim Shad D-9.

I received a phone call today that Gerald’s photoshoot ended okay. There are more photoshoots around this time of year. Most of them are to promote new lures and colors and I hope for everyone to see these ads very shortly. So please be waiting!!

As I write this blog it is 9:15 PM. I put in an extremely long final practice day today, trying to figure something out. The Red River is fishing so tough I can’t believe it! I did catch a few decent keepers today though, including this nice Spotted Bass in the photo. I honestly think about 6 or 7 pounds a day here will make the money cut for $10,000.
Joe Thomas Blog

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Kelly Jordon talks about the Lucky Craft Sammy 105.

I highly recommend all Lucky Craft fans to watch this video:

I found an extremely rare footage since over 10 years of Lucky Craft history. I heard about this from many people in the past, but never had I actually seen it. I was very impressed and moved by this footage. To simply explain, this is a footage taken even before Lucky Craft existed. Daiwa Co. had brought their, at that time contracted pro angler, Larry Nixon to Japan for some TV filming. By just watching, you can tell it was a very cold early spring where no one was able to catch any fish. But Larry continued to catch Bass by using the Long-Bill Minnow! After broadcasting this footage, the Long-Bill Minnow became extremely popular in Japan. Afterwards the TD Minnow was created and soon after that, Lucky Craft Co. was established along with the “Staysee” lure. And the name “Staysee” was originated by the lure technique used by Larry Nixon. In this clip, you can see he manipulates the rod tip in a very delicate manner, while carefully continuing a pumping retrieve. And this pumping retrieve – made the lure “stay” in position underwater, and the lure would pause almost as if it knows it is being watched by the Bass. And this is how the name “Staysee” (“Stay” & “See”) was created. Since then, Staysee became a lure that represents Lucky Craft Co. and is a significant existence to our company.

It finally came! The lure fishing season off of a boat!! And the target fish is… not a Bonito, still a little early for that. The water temperature increased from last week and it has been a nice and sunny weather. It will be my very first attack for some Barracuda this year off the coast of Newport. From 3 days ago, it’s been decreasing from 200, 100, to 50 Barracuda catches, but I wonder what will happen on this 4th day of fishing? I brought the new “Bigup” lure send to me from Japan as well as the usual FM130MR & FM110. I carefully selected my lures so even if the Barracuda migrates to the outer surface or the middle area, I will be able to aim it at any depth. And because the weather didn’t look too good in the morning and was very cloudy, I brought gold, green, and white color lures. Barracudas have small mouths so it makes it difficult to adjust retrieving. So sometimes I would have to stop retrieving and basically continue to do a stop-and-go action and immediately resume casting… I continued this for 2 hours, but had no bites at all including all the other fishermen (with live baits) around me……. Nothing in the outer surface or middle area!! Then the captain announced, “Since there are no Barracudas today, we will change our target fish to Scorpionfish & Sanddab”. I had to give up on fishing my very first Barracuda of this year…

We changed locations to the fishing spot we have been previously, where we were able to catch a lot of Scorpions before. I didn’t have a jig prepared, so I made a loop previously taught by Brent (positioned at 15cm from the weight) with an 8 oz weight and started fishing. There was only 30min left and I was getting ready to catch nothing today, but then I moved to the other side of the boat and… I caught 7 in a row!! It wasn’t a Scorpion, but I caught some Sanddub and Whitefish and my day of fishing ended. This is some additional information, but a small-scaled shark was caught also, but since it wasn’t a big fish nor a target fish, it had to be released. But it was so powerful, pulling and tumbling, it was a very good fight! Since the fishing result wasn’t so good, the captain insisted us to take home some Sardine used for bait, so I took some home.

Sandy
The Daily Flash Minnow

P.S. The Sanddub I fished today was cooked for my son’s 100th day birthday (a Japanese tradition). My family was very happy! Dad did it!!!

Well you know when I’m snapping pictures of alligators and birds during a practice day, fishing must be pretty bad. I saw a lot more wildlife today on the Red River than I did bass! The main river is nearly unfishable due to the mud and strong current.
Joe Thomas Blog

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I left Benton, Kentucky early yesterday morning and headed south towards Shreveport and the Red River. It is only about an eight hour drive, but I wanted to get there early enough to prep my boat and tackle for today’s practice. Near Memphis, I saw first hand the extensive flooding from the Mississippi River.
Joe Thomas Blog

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