Fishing Legend Retires

As I kid I used to watch Roland Matrin’s show every Sunday. He was a class act and an incredible fisherman. Roland has been a key figure in BASS tournaments for 35 years and now has decided to retire from tournaments at the age of 65.
His resume includes BASS records for victories (19), runner-up finishes (19) and CITGO Bassmaster Angler of the Year titles (nine). A member of the BASS millionaires club, Martin finished second to Rick Clunn in last summer’s ESPN Greatest Angler Debate presented by John Deere.

“I’m a really proud person, but I came to the conclusion that I can no longer compete with guys like (Michael) Iaconelli because they’re just fishing better than I am. It’s just the consistently crummy fishing I’ve had lately.

“Plus, I had a glorious fall season without worrying about tournaments. I killed a couple of moose in Alaska and a big elk in Utah. And I did all kinds of neat fishing. I went tuna fishing in Mexico. And I’m really enjoying myself. So I felt like it was time.”

Luckily, his show Fishing With Roland Martin will continue.

via bassresource.com

Tournament News – Old & New

Adams and Ramzinsky Win Wal-Mart FLW Redfish Series Championship

Adams and Ramzinsky, who have been fishing together competitively for two years, led the field after day one with a two-redfish limit weighing 13 pounds, 11 ounces. They slipped to third on day two with a limit weighing 11 pounds, 5 ounces. On day three, however, they rebounded with the second largest limit of the tournament “13 pounds, 15 ounces ” to win the event by 15 ounces.

Rounding out the top 10 teams were Peter Young and Matthew Morel, both from New Orleans (six redfish, 38 pounds, $21,000); Scott Ritter of Dauphin Island, Ala., and Robert Abruscato of Mobile, Ala. (six redfish, 35 pounds, 15 ounces, $16,000); Pat Motal and Chad Motal, both from Kyle, Texas (six redfish, 35 pounds, 6 ounces, $13,000); Chris Chapman of Winter Park, Fla., and Dan McGatlin of Lake Mary, Fla. (six redfish, 33 pounds, 6 ounces, $10,000); Troy Mell of Islamorada, Fla., and Jason Swensson of Key Largo, Fla. (six redfish, 32 pounds, 1 ounce, $6,500); Steven Auld Jr. of Baytown, Texas, and Jeff Larson of Friendswood, Texas (six redfish, 31 pounds, 5 ounces, $5,500); Sean Middleton and Brandon Buckner, both from Fort Meyers, Fla. (four redfish, 23 pounds, 9 ounces, $4,500); Danny Coppin and John Guerra, both from Belton, Texas (four redfish, 23 pounds, 6 ounces, $5,000); and David Nesloney Sr. and David Nesloney Jr., both from Rockport, Texas (four redfish, 23 pounds, 1 ounce, $4,500).

Adams and Ramzinsky pulled off a major win on the final day of the tournament, the previous day was lead by the father and son team Motal and Motal.

Niggemeyer Wins Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Regional Championship

Niggemeyer’s winning three-day catch of 15 bass weighed 50 pounds, 4 ounces. In addition to the new truck and boat, Niggemeyer earned a ticket to the 2006 $1 million Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League All-American, one of the most prestigious tournaments in bass fishing, where the winning boater will earn up to $140,000 and the winning co-angler will earn $70,000. Niggemeyer flipped a 1-ounce jig around matted hydrilla in the main-lake basin of Lake Ouachita to catch his bass. With a 3-week-old son at home, Niggemeyer called his win a “blessing from the Lord.”

By a “blessing from the Lord”, he probably means that he can give the new truck to his wife so she won’t throw him out of the house. Not that he’d have problem sleeping in that new boat.

The top six boaters and the top six co-anglers fishing the event also earned a berth into the All-American. Rounding out the top six boaters were Dicky Newberry of Houston, Texas (15 bass, 39 pounds, 11 ounces, $6,000); Jeremy Lawyer of Sarcoxie, Mo. (15 bass, 38 pounds, 11 ounces, $3,000); Dennis Berhorst of Holts Summit, Mo. (13 bass, 29 pounds, 14 ounces, $2,500); Glen Freeman of Converse, La. (13 bass, 25 pounds, 15 ounces, $2,000); and James Carper of Wright City, Okla. (nine bass, 24 pounds, 15 ounces, $1,800).

For more tournament results check out Fishing World.

Bassmaster Tips

Guy Eaker on tough spinnerbaiting

Guy Eaker lays out a perfect foundation for spinnerbaits in tough conditions, breaking down water clarity, temperature, slow fish response, and which blades will work best under which conditions. Spinnerbaits have been a go-to bait of mine for a long time, and Guy has turned me on to a few new combinations I’ll have to try. For the most part Clive and I use inline Mepps spinnerbaits for covering water, but when the weather gets tough I often switch to a white double willow spinnerbait fished extremely slow over rocky points. The Mepps spinners don’t attract much attention when falling, but a standard spinnerbait with a big rubber skirt and two willow blades clapping together can attract quite a bit. Study this one hard, you’re going to need it for those late fall bass when the weather gets tough.

Eaker also likes to slow down his spinnerbait presentation when conditions get tough. “When high pressures come in, I like to fish it slow. I mean real slow. Just barely wind that bait, keeping the blades turning while I’m watching it sink all the time.”

Case in point: At a 2003 CITGO Bassmaster Southern Open on Lake Eufaula, a fall front had come through and shut down the activity the pros had enjoyed during practice. Flinging a blade, Eaker was able to bring five bass weighing 16 pounds, 15 ounces to the scales in the opening round, while most of the field struggled.

“Most everybody else was pitching tubes, cranking and fishing a jig,” he recalls. “The baitfish had moved under the willow trees hanging way out over the lake. I was making little short underhanded casts under where the shad were, and winding. Nobody else was doing that. Everybody else was fishing on the outside. The shad were there, and the bass were lying underneath those willows, eating that spinnerbait.”

Scroggins on the French fry

The “French Fry” has to be my favorite bait for bass. There is little more exciting than fishing heavy slop waiting for that vacumm-like hit from a huge bucketmouth. My personal favorite combination is the Berkley Gulp! Sinking Minnow, weightless, with a Gamakatsu G-Lock Worm hook. Simply put it is the deadliest combination I have used that can handle big fish and heavy cover. All of the Berkley Gulp! baits are extremely tough and can last for a dozen fish easily, unlike other “french fry” baits like the Senko baits which last only a fish or two.

Scroggins adaptation of the “french fry” is simple, yet innovative. Honestly, Im kind of jealous I didn’t think of it before, because its so simple. Scroggins inserts a nail weight in to the tail of the bait so that when he allows the bait to free fall it actually swims away from him.

Scroggins, 36, has risen from local phenom (winning more than 300 small tournaments in northern Florida) to top Tour pro by being resourceful. Evidence of that can be seen in his modifications of the simple “French fry” lure.

“One of my best tricks is taking a nail and putting it in back of a Centipede or a Fish Doctor,” said the two-time BASS winner. “That’s the latest, greatest thing I’ve got. It works all around the country. Everywhere I’ve been they’ve bit it.”

Both Zoom products, the Centipede is a 4 1/4-inch worm, while the 3 3/4-inch Fish Doctor is similar but doesn’t have rings on its body.

While both are best known for Carolina rigging, Scroggins has transformed them into a Texas rigged tool that works in a variety of situations.

“What that does is when you pull your worm up and release it, the worm goes away from you. It works really well. It really looks natural. To me it imitates a shrimp or crawfish the way they glide through the water. It’s an excellent dock bait because it skips so well. It probably skips better than any bait I’ve ever used. And with the weight in the tail end of it, it sinks about right. Plus, it slides away from you, so it gets way back up under the dock.”

Simple but effective.

Unfortunately the BASS INSIDER Animated Videos are only available to paid subscribers.

* The pictures of Clive and I were taken in Ontario, Canada- Fall 2004

OFN October Newsletter

OFN, Ontario Fishing Network, is one of the biggest and best fishing sites around for Ontario. The message board alone has hundreds of regular users, all of which are friendly, witty, and willing to share their fishing expertise on a variety of subjects. Every month OFN puts out a newsletter with great articles, reports, photos, and videos. This month is no different than the previous. Lets take a look at the highlights in this months issue, October 2005.

“Setting Your Sights on a Trophy” by Justin Hoffman
Justin Hoffman breaks down what it takes to be a trophy hunter. Get ready to do your homework if you’re serious about catching huge fish. You can’t just go about trophy hunting in some slapdash random manner. You have to know your target, its behaviour, hang outs and more importantly when and what it likes to eat most. This means you’ll have to sit down and do some real research. Justin recommends checking out various forums online, local ministry studies, and tournament results for clues on where the trophys may be. You’re not going to want to spend all your time fishing a lake that only yeilds 40″ musky when you’re looking for 50″+ trophys. When you find a body of water that you know, through your research, has a few trophys waiting to be caught don’t mess around with those micro lures, go big, or go home. Big fish have big appetites and you want to be throwing a bait that reflects that.

Catching trophy fish, regardless of the species, is more to do with skill and advanced preparation than anything else. It takes a well-executed game plan and long days on the water, but the overall results are certainly well worth the effort. Putting the net under a rare trophy fish is the ultimate angling high, and one that won’t soon be forgotten.

The search for a trophy fish starts well in advance of getting the boat or your lures wet. In order to catch a big fish, you need to start thinking like one, and this is when preparation becomes key.

Deciding on a body of water is the number one priority. You need to specifically hit a lake that has big fish potential. An easy step to accomplish this is through the beauty of the internet. Start by checking out recent tournament results from various lakes in your region. If the Big Fish award from each tourney is tipping the scales past trophy proportions, you may have found a good place to start. Message boards or lodge advertisements are other great areas to delve into. People love to scoff about big fish being caught, and you can use this information to your definite advantage. Contact the local ministry and enquire about recent netting or electro shocking studies. (One lake I frequent for bass did a study some years ago; netting largies up to 7.5lbs and a smallie that tipped the scales at 8lbs! You can bet that I spend some time trophy hunting on that body of water!)

Continue reading “Setting Your Sights on a Trophy” by Justin Hoffman.

Scoring Big Bass with Football Jigs By Tim Allard
Tim Allard describes in detail how the football jig can be advantageous over more commonly used jigs for huge bass. Tipped with a plastic crayfish, salamander, or perhaps even a sandworm fished at a slow and steady retrieve can produce awesome results in the right conditions.

Football jigs can be effective with a rubber or silicone skirt as a flipping jig, especially on baits with a weed guard. However, one of my favorite ways to fish a football jig, and the technique I’ll be discussing here, is rigging the jig with a soft-plastic bait and dragging it along the bottom. Crayfish, creatures, lizards and tubes are some excellent choices for bodies to rig on a football jig. All these baits have appendages that dance as the jig bumps and bounces along the bottom, an enticing action to bass.

Slowly dragging a football jig and soft-plastic body along bottom will produce big bass when used in the right structure areas. The jig should be fished in relatively snag-free conditions. Try them in craggy, sharp-edged rock bottoms, and you’ll loose a lot of jigs. It’s better to drag these jigs in smooth, rock-bottom areas, mixed with sand or mud to maintain constant contact with bottom at all times.

Continue reading Scoring Big Bass with Football Jigs By Tim Allard.

OFN member submitted photo highlights for October.

Check out all the great images on the Ontario Fishing Network photo gallery!

Underwater Smallmouth Bass Video
A great underwater fishing video of a Smallmouth Bass attacking a home made spinnerbait made from components bought at Luremaking.com.

For more awesome underwater fishing videos check out Ontario Fishing Reels. I highly recommend the Musky videos section.

Pro Bass Fisherman Catches Snake; Calls Wife

Pete Ponds, a professional Bass fisherman from Madison, Wisconson, was fishing with a friend when a moccasin swam close to the boat. Pete poked at it with his rod tip and ended up hooking in to the back of the snake with his favorite popper.

Now you’ve got a few choices here, but Pete is deathly afraid of snakes, so he did what any brave man would do in a time like this. He called his wife?

“I dragged that snake around about 20 minutes trying to get my hook loose or drown the snake. That didn’t work, and I wasn’t about to reach down there and try to get it,” he said. “So I did the only thing I knew to do. I called my wife, Kim, who was at home (on the bank at Caroline). She ain’t scared of snakes at all. She met us, reached down, grabbed the snake behind its head, got my Pop-R and let the snake go. Just like that.”

While I could write something funny about this situation it actually points out something that non-fanatics might consider strange. Why all this effort to get the snake off the lure? Why was it so important to keep the lure?

“Problem was, I wanted my Pop-R back. It’s the only one I had in that color.”

Whats the craziest thing you’ve ever done to get a lure back? I’ll bet it wasn’t calling your wife.

At the end of the day Pete is still a professional bass and is in the process of developing a new swiming jig that resembles a spinnerbait without the blades.

I fished with a standard flipping jig with a long 5″ double tail grub in a similar fashion for pike during our stay with Sportsman’s Lodge in Ontario. It even had filed down the sides of the head so it would swim better. The lure was effective and easy to fish through reeds and medium cover. Pete’s swimming jig will have a more fine tuned setup for bass, like a smaller hook, but will probably work great for pike too.