By Tyler Reed
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — B.A.S.S. Nation is the new name of the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation. The name change was announced to leaders of the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation during the annual presidents’ meeting, held in conjunction with the 2012 Cabela’s Bassmaster Federation Nation Championship.
The potential name change had been discussed with state leadership over the course of the past year.
“The B.A.S.S. Nation name is being adopted for a number of reasons,” explained Don Corkran, director of the B.A.S.S. Nation. “First, it is expected to enhance our opportunities to grow the grass-roots membership of B.A.S.S. because it better encompasses all we do in addition to fishing competition, including youth initiatives, conservation efforts, promotion of the sport and among fellow bass anglers.
“We also consider the term ‘Federation’ to be a bit outdated, while ‘Nation’ better fits our organization in this era of social networking,” continued Corkran.
The name change will become effective Jan. 1, 2013, although the transition will likely take time to evolve.
Thanksgiving has come and gone and the winter patterns are heating up. The number of anglers on the water are low, the chances of you getting hooked up on that fish of a lifetime are very good. This month will be a great time to catch bass, striper and crappie as long as Old Man Winter doesn’t come down to hard on us.
Don’t forget about the December Big Fish contest at Fish Tales, located at Anna Point Marina. They are paying a $100 prize for the largest bass, crappie and striper weighed in for the month. To be eligible, all you have to do is launch from APM and pay the $8 ramp fee or be a yearly ramp pass holder. If you are fishing with a guide or an employee, the $8 ramp fee MUST be paid prior to your outing.
BASS- The largemouth will be in a full winter pattern starting this month. Look for fish to be on main lake points, deep brush and rock piles, channel edges and deep stump fields. Great way to catch them are with suspending jerk baits, spoons like the Tooth Ache, blade baits like the Silver Buddy and Riverside Ripper and Jig & Pig combinations. Fishing slow and finding the bait fish are the keys to winter time fishing. You will still be able to find some schooling action in the Dike 3 area of the lake all month. A-Rigs will be a major player again this winter to put fish in the boat.
CRAPPIE- The Specks have moved from the shallows to the winter time hideouts. Bridge pilings, deep docks and brush piles will hold numbers of fish all winter. Small minnows rigged on slip bobbers and 2″ curl tail grubs are great ways to catch them. There will be all sorts of sizes schooled up together this time of year. (not necessarily according to size) Most of the time you will have to catch lot’s of small ones to get the keepers that you are after. This is the reason I prefer artificial bait.
STRIPER- These will be the most sought out fish all winter long. Early in the month you can catch them up in the “RIVERS” until the water temps start to drop and then they will follow the bait back down to the mid lake area. Around Christmas they should be located around the 208 bridge and the Dike 3 fish will also be turning on. Look for birds diving as an indicator that bait fish is in the area. Don’t run all the way up to the diving birds, the school can be very large and fish can be caught 100 yards of more away from the action. I like Bass Assassin Sea Shads rigged on a 1/4oz long shank jig head. Downsizing your line will help you as well. I use 8lb Izorline on my spinning outfits and 10lb Izorline on my casting. Remember you are fishing open water, no need for large line tests to get them in the boat. Spoons and blade baits will work if the fish are not actively feeding. Look for them on your electronics and give them a vertical presentation. Good luck and I will see you out there!!!
Lake Level- Full Pool
Water Temps (as of 11-26-12)
Dike 3- 57 degrees
Down Lake- 50-54 degrees
Mid Lake- 48-52 degrees
Up Lake- 47-51 degrees
Chris Craft
CCBASSN Lake Anna Guide Service
540-895-5770
540-894-6195
540-895-5900
[email protected]
TULSA, Okla. – Five-time B.A.S.S. event champion Terry Scroggins joins the competition field for Jack Link’s Major League Fishing’s second televised event, The General Tire Summit Cup, League Commissioner Don Rucks announced today.
Scroggins, who finished third in this season’s Toyota Tundra Angler-of-the-Year standings, has 42 B.A.S.S. Top Ten finishes. Scroggins, of Palatka, Florida, replaces Kevin VanDam, who was unable to compete in the Summit Cup because of scheduling conflicts. VanDam will return for Major League Fishing’s next event.
The Summit Cup, filmed August 27 through September 1 on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York, will begin airing on Thursday, January 3, 2012, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on Outdoor Channel.
“We were absolutely delighted to welcome Terry Scroggins to Major League Fishing. As one of the top anglers on the B.A.S.S. Elite Series tour, we are fortunate that Terry Scroggins is joining us,” said Major League Fishing Commissioner Don Rucks.
“Terry’s a creative and popular angler, and he has the type of on-camera personality that works extremely well at Major League Fishing. We believe we have a field of anglers that is second to none, and Terry Scroggins fits right in.”
Major League Fishing angler Tim Horton, who missed the league’s first event, will also be competing at the Chautauqua Lake event. In the league’s first event, Todd Faircloth stepped in for Horton.
Altogether, the 24 Summit Cup competitors include: Tommy Biffle, Denny Brauer, Mark Davis, Boyd Duckett, Brent Ehrler, Edwin Evers, Shaw Grigsby, Greg Hackney, Mike Iaconelli, Alton Jones, Kelly Jordon, Jeff Kriet, Gary Klein, Bobby Lane, Aaron Martens, Mike McClelland, Ish Monroe, Takahiro Omori, Jason Quinn, Skeet Reese, Dean Rojas and Byron Velvick, as well as Scroggins and Horton.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Some anglers are signing up in hopes of winning a coveted berth in the Bassmaster Classic. Others want to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series. And still others simply want to pocket prizes while making a name for themselves on the national tournament scene.
Whatever the motivation, pro angler rosters are filling up for the nine-event Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Series for 2013, which kicks off Jan. 31 at Florida’s Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.
Co-anglers, who fish alongside the pros and compete for a separate prize purse, have their own reasons for signing up for the nonboater division. Most hope to win a tournament-ready bass boat rig, as well as cash prizes, while many are just happy for the chance to share a boat and learn tournament tactics from some of the nation’s best fishermen — Elite Series pros like Gerald Swindle, Ish Monroe and Michael Iaconelli.
“The pro competition is top notch and includes a diverse field of Elite Series Pros, full-time tour pros and extremely skilled local anglers looking to make their mark,” said Chris Bowes, senior tournament manager. “The Opens are the stepping stones to the Bassmaster Elite Series. These top-level pros compete not only for valuable boat/motor packages and a substantial cash payout, but the opportunity to advance to the next level.”
Anglers in the 2013 Opens Series will fish some of the nation’s best bass lakes, including fisheries that made Bassmaster Magazine’s “100 Best Bass Lakes” in 2012. They include Lake Erie, No. 3; Oneida Lake, No. 16; Kissimmee Chain, No. 21; and Red River, No. 47.
“In all three divisions — Central, Northern and Southern — these anglers will fish outstanding lakes,” Bowes said. “And of course the full attention of the industry is on each event as bass fishing fans tune in to see which pro angler can climb to the top of the leaderboard after the final fish is weighed and secure the coveted Bassmaster Classic berth.”
This year, six Bassmaster Opens Series champions qualified for the 2013 Bassmaster Classic: Tracy Adams of Wilkesboro, N.C.; Hank Cherry of Maiden, N.C.; Jason Christie of Park Hill, Okla.; Pete Gluszek of Mt. Laurel, N.J.; Josh Wagy of Dewitt, Va.; and Casey Scanlon of Lenexa, Kan.
The winning pro in each Opens Series competition receives a prize package valued at $40,000, and the co-angler takes home a boat and motor package valued at $25,000. With a field of 150 boats, more than $250,000 in cash and merchandise is awarded at each tournament. The entry fees for Opens tournaments are $1,500 for a pro angler and $425 for co-anglers.
“Many B.A.S.S. members are not in the position to own a bass boat or feel they are ready to fish at the professional level but still dream of fishing competitively at the highest level,” Bowes said. “The Bassmaster Opens pro/am format allows for an angler to do just that. In addition to the financial rewards, there’s the opportunity to fish with some of the greatest pro anglers in the world.”
The 2012 Southern Opens Pro Points champion, Kevin Hawk, who fished several of the Bassmaster Opens in 2010 as a co-angler, demonstrates the potential for co-anglers to climb to the top-tier tournament pro level. The Guntersville, Ala., angler signed up for the Opens in 2012 and reached the pinnacle of the sport — the Bassmaster Elite Series — on his first try.
To register as a pro or co-angler, click here.
“Man today was a tough day on the water. The bass just wanted nothing to do with anything I threw at them!” Well what did you throw and how did you throw it? Did you throw what you needed to throw or did you throw what you wanted to throw? More times than not, the answer to that question is the latter of the two. Fishing for negative bass can definitely take people out of their comfort zones. If an anglers strength is power fishing or chucking and winding cranks and blade baits, switching over to a finesse rod and just barely crawling small plastics along the bottom can be as boring to them as watching grass grow. But if the bass aren’t chasing baits, making this important switch is the best way to avoid having to say the first 2 sentences of this article. When the realization sets in that what you’re doing isn’t working and that your day is going to have a grim outcome unless you make a change, this is when you need to break out your box of “panic plastics” along with your bag of patience. For me, I keep my box of panic plastics simple. It consists of 3.5” Craw D’oeuvres, 3.5” Food Chain Tubes, 3.6” Hammer Shads, and 5” Finicky Ticklers in a small variety of basic color hues along with the terminal tackle needed to rig them (jig heads, small tungsten weights, small hooks and stuff for drop shotting). I choose these 4 baits for a couple reasons. First, they’re all down sized baits with very subtle actions which plays the key role in sparking a negative bass’s interest . Second, I can rig them all on the same terminal tackle to make things even easier on my patience. For example, if I’m fishing in or around cover and need a weedless presentation, I can tie a 2/0 ewg hook and an 1/8 oz tungsten weight on a single rod and be able to Texas rig any of these baits on it. This goes for drop shotting, Shaky heading and split shot rigging all of these baits as well. This way I can easily alternate between baits and colors until I figure out what color and profile the bass are responding best to without having to constantly re-tie.
How you work your bait is just as important as the bait choice itself when the bass are negative. Forcing yourself to “soak” your bait during a cast can make all the difference in the underwater world. Getting into the habit of letting your bait sit in one place for 30 seconds after the initial fall is where it starts. If an angler starts working the bait directly after the initial fall, 99% of the time the angler will pull it out of the negative bass’s “interest zone” before the bass even makes the decision to come inspect what just fell through the water column. After the initial soaking, the rest of the retrieve should follow suit. Little shakes, tiny hops and a lot of long pauses in between those movements. If you make the bait appear as an effortless snack, you’ll raise your odds of getting that bass to expend the slight amount of energy needed to acquire that simple snack. Think of a negative bass as really lazy people sitting on a couch watching TV. They won’t get off their butts to get themselves something to eat, but put a bowl of their favorite candy within arm’s reach of them and see what happens.
Just like anything else, practice makes perfect. Once you gain confidence in soaking finesse baits, your box of panic plastics will soon become your security blanket every time the bite gets tough. It will also help you through the winter months when the water temps drop below 45 degrees. Contrary to what many anglers think, bass can definitely be caught on plastics in the frigid temps…as long as you know what to throw and how to throw it.
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20.Nov.2012
Carson Rejzer, Blevins partner, reiterated those feelings. “We left Virginia and it was forty degrees, cold and windy. To wake up the next day and be standing on the shores of Lake Amistad, I felt like I had already won.”
The duo from Virginia Tech located some active fish early and steadily increased their weight as the day wore on. Their limit was anchored by a 6 lb brute landed in the final hours of competition. “That big fish was key for us – we knew the guys from Georgia Southern were great anglers and we were going to need a good bag to compete,” said Rejzer. “When it was all said and done, we fished the whole day without any mistakes and with a lake like Amistad, that’s really what it takes to win.”
The made-for-TV event is scheduled to appear on Americana Outdoors, broadcast on NBC Sports, in January 2013. The competition will also be featured in 2013 during an episode of the BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Series, as well as other programs throughout the year.
Modeled after the most lucrative contingency rewards in the industry, Ranger Cup, Ranger Cup University is the first program of its kind exclusively for collegiate anglers and is open to those fishing in either FLW- or ACA-affiliated competitions. Signup is free, regardless of which brand of boat they own. To remain qualified in the program, anglers need only adhere to clothing and logo requirements. And as part of the Ranger Cup University program, participants will be able to receive specially discounted tournament gear through Angler Skins and Gemini Custom Apparel, with no artwork or set-up fees. Through these vendors, Ranger Cup University anglers can purchase fully customized tournament jerseys for as low as $48.
Collegiate anglers must register each year to remain eligible in the program. 2013 registration will be online and available soon. For more information on Ranger Cup University, including details on program guidelines and benefits, go online to RangerBoats.com.
20.Nov.2012
Carson Rejzer, Blevins partner, reiterated those feelings. “We left Virginia and it was forty degrees, cold and windy. To wake up the next day and be standing on the shores of Lake Amistad, I felt like I had already won.”
The duo from Virginia Tech located some active fish early and steadily increased their weight as the day wore on. Their limit was anchored by a 6 lb brute landed in the final hours of competition. “That big fish was key for us – we knew the guys from Georgia Southern were great anglers and we were going to need a good bag to compete,” said Rejzer. “When it was all said and done, we fished the whole day without any mistakes and with a lake like Amistad, that’s really what it takes to win.”
The made-for-TV event is scheduled to appear on Americana Outdoors, broadcast on NBC Sports, in January 2013. The competition will also be featured in 2013 during an episode of the BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Series, as well as other programs throughout the year.
Modeled after the most lucrative contingency rewards in the industry, Ranger Cup, Ranger Cup University is the first program of its kind exclusively for collegiate anglers and is open to those fishing in either FLW- or ACA-affiliated competitions. Signup is free, regardless of which brand of boat they own. To remain qualified in the program, anglers need only adhere to clothing and logo requirements. And as part of the Ranger Cup University program, participants will be able to receive specially discounted tournament gear through Angler Skins and Gemini Custom Apparel, with no artwork or set-up fees. Through these vendors, Ranger Cup University anglers can purchase fully customized tournament jerseys for as low as $48.
Collegiate anglers must register each year to remain eligible in the program. 2013 registration will be online and available soon. For more information on Ranger Cup University, including details on program guidelines and benefits, go online to RangerBoats.com.
