Fishing Hype.com
Okay Hype Fans - send me your email addresses and I will draw one name a month for some freebies from some of my sponsors, line, jigs, and plastics are all up for grabs!!!
1/1/07 - Hello Hype fans!!! Welcome to my new website I will try to keep you informed on how my year is going. Where I am, where I'm going to be, and how I am doing. I will also try to give you some tips and techniques that will help you put more fish in the boat. Also check out my blog that will go more into detail about what I did during practice and the tournament from bait to presentation. You will also have a chance to win some cool prizes from my sponsors.
1/1/08 - Well Hype fans it is another new year with new goals and optimisum. I will be running a 07' 21X with a 225 opti XS and a motorguide 109 TR Digital this year. I will again be concentrating on the Weekend Series again this year. They have gone back to the 40 boat per division regional so I am excited about making down to KY Lake this October. Missing the the top 8 by 4 places hurt last year. This year I will actually start and end the year in KY. Mary and I are going to start the season fishing the Fisher's of Men National Championship on Lake Cumberland and ending it with the Weekend Series regional on Kentucky/Barkely. I will again be traveling with my co-angler Joe Ambright and fellow pro and Team Outkast member Brent Carlson. Brent and I will also again team up to fish the Dick Hiley/St. Judes Hospital Charity tournament on the Mississippi River out of Wabasha.
4/7/08 - The first tournament of the year has come and gone. Mary and I just got back from Lake Cumberland in Kentucky for the F.O.M National Championship. We put in a good showing placing 7th overall out of 138 teams from across the country. We started day one with a bang, bring 4 fish for 17.46 to the scales to take the lead. Then the lake came up 4ft over night with all the rain and got muddy. Day two didn't go so well loosing the first fish and having a 3 1/2+ smallie break me off in the trolling motor. We managed one little spot for 1.12lbs, we made the cut to fish saturday. With the lake up now over 8ft in 24hrs and the rain finally ending we fished the very backs of the bigger creeks with the clearer water. We brought 4 more fish to the scale wieghing 8.84lbs good for 7th place and a $2500 check. The eventual winners had two limits for 16+lbs and one single 4 1/2lb smallie the last day for 37+lbs.
4/25/08 - Wow what a way to start out the year. Back to back checks and bonus money from Triton. I fished the first FOM tournament of the year in MN with my 10yr old son Hunter on the Mississippi River pools 4&5. With winter hanging on as long as possible up here Lake Pepin has only been ice free about a week before the tournament. Friday was my only practice day and I didn't figure much out other than the water was very cold with an avg. of 42 degrees. After 4 hours of fishing backwaters I decided to give Lake Pepin a try. I caught my one and only fish up there on a jerkbait about a 2.5 smallie. Being the 3rd boat out in the morning I decided to start on a community hole, just going off a gut feeling. We had 5 fish in 50 min. and gave the area about 2 1/2 hours without another bite. I ran a bunch of other stuff during the day with nothing happening I went to my favorite bank and caught the big fish a 4.24lb smallie with about and hour left. The good Lord was looking out for us this day. With 22 of 39 teams blanking or not wieghing in. We caught our 6 fish throwing jerkbaits on 6 1/2 & 7 foot shimano compre rods with curado reels spooled with Gamma 10&12lb test line. This was a very special win, being on my favorite body of water and to win it with Hunter was awesome.
6/10/08 - Well so much for keeping up to date on this thing. It should go better now that I have a laptop to take with me out of town working durning the week. From the great start to the year I hit a cold streak for a couple of tournaments. I went from being a hero on the river to a zero literally. Brent and I blanked the first day of the St. Judes tournament. Not sure what went wrong here but for the second year in a row we've been so far off the pattern it's stupid. This year say some of the biggest sacks ever with a couple of 30's and some high 20's. We went out on day two for the come back award. We went to the lake and caught 8 smallies for 14lbs. Capra and Martin brought in 30lb bag to win that prestigous award.
Next on the list was the Excel Singles event on the Whitefish Chain. With the crazy spring we've had the fish and weeds were way behind. I was able to find and catch a ton of fish up to the 2 1/2lb range but couldn't find anything bigger. I was fishing spawning bays and inside weedlines that fish were cruising. I had checked some smallies and caught a couple and even started on them. I obviously didn't find the right ones. 1st and 2nd both brought in 5 smallmouth for 19 and 18lbs respectively, with me bring in a mere 10.80lbs, tying 3 others for 34th out of 50 boats.
It was time for a rebound at the first ABA/BASS Weekend Series event on the Le Homme Dieu chain. Having only a day and a half to practice I made the most of it. I put the trolling motor on high and covered as much water as possible. This chain of lakes is knowing for it's small fish and 10lb bag could easily get you a check. The weather for practice was less than perfect with thunderstorms and big wind, 40+mph. So switching between a crankbait and swimbait I managed to find a couple areas holding a few more fish than others. Starting the tournament with a crankbait I put a small limit in the boat. Needing bigger fish I switched areas and upgraded a couple of fish including a 3lber off a dock. With the sun still out I ran another stretch of docks cathcing the fish I really needed a 4.22lber. Culling one more time in the last 15min gave me a 13.30lb bag, good for 4th place and $551, also I was the highest finishing Triton owner, cashing me another $500. All but one fish that I weighed in came off a finesse jig thrown on 12lb Gamma line, on a new Shimano Camara 7 med rod and Citica 100 reel.
7/15/08 It has been a good turn toward summer as Mary and I fished the Green Lake, F.O.M in the MN East division. I've never been on the lake and with a little advise from some buddies that have fished it we put together a game plan. Fishing was some what tough though we did find one good school of fish and a nother pattern to go with it. Flippin coontail with a 5" Outkast tube was key to finding our fish but tournament day they didn't go. I had found a big sand opening in practice that turned out to be key. Throwing a Outkast stick worm on 15lb Gamma line we brought in a 5 fish 17.60 lb bag, good for 2nd place.
I then headed to Leech Lake for a club event and the Excel Singles tournament. This lake isn't my strong suit but I seem to manage okay. The club event took me a while to figure the fish out but once I keyed in an the new cane grass it was pretty easy, I brought 5 fish for 16 lb good for 3rd.
The Excel event was going to be a point tournament for me. Show up do my thing and earn some points towards the Championship. I prefished the Friday before with Mary and caught all my fish in the rice on Spro Bronze Eye frogs. Once the tournament rolled around that bite vanished and I had to start over. Noticing alot fo boats fishing cut banks I had to try it. Running to of my favorite banks with an Outkast Stick worm I was able to put 5 fishing weighing 19.3 lbs good for first.
Bass on Jigs
One of my favorite baits to fish and one that more tournament anglers depend on to catch that big bass is a jig with a plastic or pork trailer. The jig it’s self is a pretty simple tool, a chunk of lead with a stout sharp hook with or without some sort of weed guard and some with and others without silicone skirts. Now on the other hand the styles of jigs are almost countless. It seems with this bait more than any other everyone has their own style of head and size of hook they prefer. For the most part there are four different classifications of jig heads that are made. One is what is considered a grass jig. This style of jig generally has a bullet shape head to allow it to slide threw vegetation without getting hung up and either a light wire hook for casting and a stout heavy wire hook when flipping in heavy vegetation, such as milfoil and coontail. Then you have a wood jig that has an Arkie style head with a stout heavy wire hook. This has a flatter type head, which allows the bait to slide over and threw wood without getting hung up whereas a bullet nose will tend to wedge into the forks of the branches and where logs cross over each other. The football jig has an oblong look like a football. This head design is made to hug the bottom, and transmits all the subtle changes in the bottom. The final jig is the smallest of the jigs and generally doesn’t have a weed guard. This would be the jig worm/shakey head which has a smaller light wire hook. The majority of different head designs come from guys combining a weed type head with a wood style head. Though this can be tricky considering the two different overall productive shapes. The best one I have found thus far is the R/T Jig by Outkast Tackle. Size of the jig to use depends on cover your fishing, depth, and some times how hard the wind or current is. If you are fishing a weedline and are casting a jig you want one that will fall slow but also keep contact with the bottom. So if the wind is blowing 30mph you may have to switch from a 1/4oz up to a 3/8 or 1/2oz jig to feel bottom. Here you also need a light wire hook because you’re making a long cast and that lighter wire hook will penetrate easier than a heavy duty flippin’ hook. With all skirted jigs I trim the skirt just below the bend of the hook, this allows the skirt to flare out more when it hits bottom. Also take the fiber weed guard and trim out half the bristles this will reduce the jig from slide out of the fish’s mouth on the hook set and will not affect its weedlessness. I fish a casting jig on a Shimano 7’medium heavy V-rod and Curado 6.2:1 combination with 14lb to 17lb green color line. Fishing a jig on a weedline I keep the boat about a half a cast length off the weedline. This allows me to cast the jig a short distance into the weeds. Most of the fish are going to positioned on the edge or just inside. Allow the bait to settle to the bottom on slack yet taunt line always watching the line for any indication of a strike. Once it has settled on the bottom I will shake the jig in place with the rod tip a few seconds and then pull the jig up and let it fall back to the bottom. In doing so I’m only moving the bait forward about 12 – 18 inches. I repeat this process until the jig is out of the weeds. This is also were you would throw the jig worm head/shakey head jig, such as the Outkast Money Jig, in 1/16-1/4oz with a 6-7in worm on it a.k.a. jig worm. This I usually throw on a 6-1/2 foot medium heavy Crucial fast action spinning rod teamed up with Shimano Stratic MG spinning reel spooled with 8-10lb test line also green in color. When fishing around wood or pitching coontail and milfoil I beef up my equipment starting with the line. Going from 15lb up to 20-25lb mono and braided lines and will switch to a 7-1/2 ft. flippin' rod and a Shimano Castaic reel. I choose this reel because of its unique thumb bar system for flippin' and pitchin’ methods. Generally speaking wood fishing is a shallow water endeavor. I still trim the skirt of jig but the weed guard I leave whole but cut it down slightly length wise. This will help stiff it some so that the hook will not get caught up in the wood, and with a short distance of line out it doesn’t impede with penetration on the hook set. When fishing wood cover everyone has an opinion on what part of the cover to pitch too first. Myself I start at the bank and work all the way around back to the bank on the other side. Now if you find a pattern that the fish are on a certain part of the structure then target that first and move on. Using a football jig or the Outkast Touchdown jig, can tell you more about the bottom of the lake than your electronics. The key is using a heavy jig that will hug the bottom. I fish this on a 7-1/2ft. flippin' rod with a Curado 6.2:1 reel with a braid line. I prefer the braided lines because you’re casting this bait along ways, it has a heavy hire hook and the bait is heavy 5/8 – 11/2oz. This jig can have or may not have a weed guard and can be skirted or fished with a skirted type bait, a skirted twin tail grub is a very popular choice. Most anglers that fish this bait throw it where they would fish a Carolina rig and is fished almost in the same manner. Make a long cast and let the jig settle to the bottom. With the rod tip pointed to the water slowly pull the rod tip back towards you. Only use the reel to take up the slack line. After using this jig you will soon be able to tell the differences in mud, clay, and sand those all important transition lines. There are many head styles and hook styles on the market today hopefully this will point you in the right direction. Check out different styles and stick with one that works for you, because confidence is the number one key to success.
