BassmasterSeptember/October 2019的目錄

When you look at this photo of Elite Series pro Cliff Pirch, a lot of questions come to mind. Is that a bass on the end of his line? If that is a bass on the end of his line, how big is it? If that is a big bass on the end of his line, how freakin’ high did it jump? It is likely the questions were even more plentiful for Pirch, who hooked this fish during a tournament day on the Elite Series. “When is the last time I retied?” “How well is the fish hooked?” “Is there anything under the water between me and the fish?” “Did Seigo get a photo of what just happened?” Well, to answer the last question, sort of. The image is incredible,…

ACTIVE ANGLER Brian Snowden remembers hauling across Lake St. Clair after several days of pre-fishing for a Bassmaster Elite Series event. The six-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier had hours and hours of charts logged, and enough waypoints to make a go at a big blue trophy — until he speared a wave and suddenly lost it all. “I spent a week before that marking waypoints and graphing,” Snowden recalls. “I was on my way in, and I ended up spearing a wave and lost all of my waypoints. You don’t realize how strong that water is and just how much of it can get into your boat until you run headfirst into one.” Since that event, Snowden has learned to lay his bow-mounted graphs down inside of the boat. “That’s especially…

SURE, YOU FISH with finesse. But now it’s time to dive deeper into the techniques. Once upon a time, grizzled bass fishermen believed “finesse fishing” to be an unmanly practice, executed with tackle better suited to kids at a sunfish derby. No more. “Finesse fishing is such an important part of my game today that I sometimes feel I rely on it too much,” confesses Brandon Lester, Bassmaster Elite Series pro from Fayetteville, Tenn. “But if you are ever struggling and need bites, finesse is the way to do it. No doubt about it!” Indeed, “To finesse or not to finesse” is often the conundrum of the day. Rare is the Elite angler without a spinning rod with a finesse rig close at hand. Too many tournament wins and rebounds…

DATE: Oct. 25, 2018 VENUE: Lake N, a flatland reservoir WATER: 65 degrees, stained WEATHER: 50 degrees, rain PRO: John Crews, 40, Salem, Va. Crews is a B.A.S.S. tournament veteran and an 11-time Classic qualifier. BOAT: Bass Cat Lynx with 250-horsepower Mercury Verado outboard, Minn Kota trolling motor, Raymarine electronics on Bass Boat Technologies mounts, twin Power-Pole shallow-water anchors EVERY BASS PRO needs sponsors. How much involvement each pro actually has with his sponsors varies widely. Virginia native John Crews has a talent for designing lures — he’s worked closely with hard-bait manufacturer Spro for years and designed its wildly successful Little John crankbait series. However, some of Crews’ other sponsors proved less receptive to his creativity. “Prior to partnering with Spro, I’d worked with several soft bait manufacturers that I…

Bill Lowen may have earned over a million dollars catching tournament-quality fish, but he’ll be the first to admit that winning a check isn’t always easy in September and October. “Those two months are some of the worst fishing of the year, to be honest,” Lowen says. “That’s a time when a lot of people really struggle to catch them, you know?” To find fish when the going gets tough, Lowen says he turns to a reaction bite powered by a unique squarebill crankbait. “Most of your squarebills on the market hit the 4- to 6-foot range. This one is designed to fish extremely shallow. The maximum depth is 3 or 4 feet.” He’s talking about the Ima Bill Lowen squarebill, a bait that carries his name because it was…

Congratulations to the newest members of the Bassmaster Lunker Club™. Membership in the club is free and open to any B.A.S.S. member who catches a largemouth bass weighing 10 pounds or more, a spotted bass weighing 5 pounds or more, or a smallmouth bass weighing 6 pounds or more, from Jan. 1, 2018, to the present. New Lunker Club members will receive an official certificate and a gift pack. [Trophy Trends] To request an application, write to editorial@bassmaster.com or B.A.S.S., The Lunker Club, 3500 Blue Lake Drive, Suite 330, Birmingham, AL 35243. A photo documenting the catch must be provided, along with the length and girth of the bass. Only suitable photos will be published in Bassmaster Magazine. We will only accept entries for bass that are released alive. View…

If you didn’t catch the First Cast image on page 8, flip back to the front of the magazine and take a gander. Now, this image was taken moments later and gives us answers to pressing questions. Yes, Elites Series pro Cliff Pirch was hooked up to a bass. And yes, it was a monster. His line held, his knot was true and the fish was hooked perfectly. After playing the fish to the boat, the unimaginable happened. Pirch let the giant largemouth slip through his fingers. This fish, shoulders as broad as a linebacker, length well over 20 inches and a mouth big enough to swallow a bowling ball, just slipped out of his hand. If Pirch were to reach any further, the one leg connecting him to the…

Facebook followers react to Bassmaster Magazine rankings of the best bass fisheries in the nation for 2019 and for the first time ever, New York’s St. Lawrence River earned the top spot! Billy Shepard Bill Shepard bucket list let’s fish all 100 Jerry Beebe That is awesome I am glad my wife and I live on the St. Lawrence River!! It is a great fishery for sure! Matt Hayes Was there last week… Tore them up.. I grew up there and 20 years ago… It didn’t fish like it does now. Nathan Hardesty #6 is my lake “Hey Dad, I’m Snagged!” I was fishing with my 7-year-old daughter, Maddie, on Minnesota’s Lake Vermillion the morning of July 1st. We were casting along a rocky point when she saw a fish…

THE PATH TO a successful and enduring tournament career is paved with an assortment of stones: Some anglers opt to run and gun; some fish slower and more methodically; while others rely on a primary strength such as flipping. Yet they all share the common ability to incorporate a creative blend of science — which indicates a bass should be “here” based upon time of year, the weather and water conditions — and art, the often-intangible aspect of finding fish based upon gut instinct. Elite Series pro Clark Wendlandt has built one of the more impressive resumes in professional fishing using his unique formula of science and art. His “skins on the wall” are impressive, launched by a BFL All American win in 1992, followed by four Bassmaster Classic berths,…

DAYS ARE GROWING shorter and temperatures are trending downward, so bass know it’s time to fill their bellies and pack on the weight that’ll get them through winter’s forthcoming lean period. Check out what these Bassmaster Elite Series anglers have to say about engaging fall whoppers. As you will see, there’s more than one way to skin this cat. The pros choose a variety of lures and use them in myriad situations to target giant fish in autumn. These next couple months may offer you the best opportunity to catch a personal best, so take good notes before heading to the water’s edge. Remember, it’s pretty simple to catch a bunch of dinks, but who wants more little fish? If you are after a bass that will make your heart…

1 [Responding To Pressure] Not only is bass fishing experiencing explosive growth, today’s anglers are more skilled than before, thanks to such factors as greater access to angling information via the internet and the popularity of high school and college bass fishing programs. Unfortunately, bass often respond to increased lure bombardment by “getting lockjaw.” Here’s how Bassmaster Elite Series pros get pressured bass to bite. How Bass React To Fishing Pressure Bass that have previously been caught and released can become extremely wary about biting lures that aren’t totally lifelike. Bass often react to heavy fishing pressure the same way they react to cold fronts — by moving into thick weed or brush cover. In lakes with sparse to moderate amounts of shallow cover, pressured bass often suspend in the…

Carpenter friend and Jackson Kayak pro staffer Jeremy Crowe put together a shelf that vastly increased the storage in my Nissan Titan’s 5 1/2-foot bed when toting a yak. Add a couple more smaller pieces of OSB to roll out a sleeping bag on top of an air mattress. The two-by-four boards and two sheets of OSB for the project cost about $30. 1 After cutting two-by-fours for beams to fit the width of the cap, make sure your rear board placement allows enough space under the cap to fit items you want to put on the shelf. This two-by-four location establishes how long the OSB needs to be, leaving a 1-inch ledge on the two-by-four for adding the sleep extension. 2 Space the three two-by-four beams equidistant. 3 Cut…

When the season starts showing transitions to early fall, how do you choose a depth range, and what indicators will clue you that the fish are moving shallow?Roger Carver, Charleston, S.C. Bassmaster Elite Series pro Rick Morris Early fall fishing can be tough because the fish tend to suspend a lot and scatter. There are always a few fish, including some big ones, shallow, so I cover a lot of shallow water, catching one here, one there. You can usually catch a limit including some big ones. I will key on main-lake pockets, but will fish the points or bluff ends at the mouths of those pockets. I usually pick the pockets that are closest to deep water. Bass will use those points and bluffs to migrate into the shallow…

ANY BASS ANGLER who doesn’t have a side-viewing graph on his boat’s console is severely handicapped. But even with today’s most advanced electronics, you must learn how to interpret the displayed images to take full advantage of this remarkable technology. Fish and bottom features are relatively easy to see on the center portion of a side-viewing display because they appear brightly against a dark backdrop. This is essentially what you would see with down-viewing sonar. Things are not as obvious when they are farther from the boat and show up on either side of the dark center lane. Fish are especially hard to see because they appear as tiny bright dots or thin slashes over a bottom that varies in hue and luminance. The secret to full-disclosure side viewing in…

THEY CALL HIM the KVD of Africa. He has won every title imaginable, multiple times, and few, if any, will argue Justy Varkevisser isn’t the best bass angler ever to come out of southern Africa. Soon, if all goes as planned, the farm boy from Gweru, Rhodesia, will be smashing records on the American tourney circuit. The veteran angler has won the prominent South African EBass tourney circuit four times, won two South Africa Bass Angler Association (SABAA) national tournaments outright and been seeded first on nine occasions, qualifying him nine times for America’s B.A.S.S. Nation Championship (BNC) — not to mention all the local and regional titles. Varkevisser qualified for the South Africa World Team the last six years and was designated team captain the last three. South Africa…

Water type: Major creek arm of a TVA reservoir Water temp: 66 to 68 degrees Clarity: 1 to 2 feet Depth: 5 to 25 feet Structure: Rocky channel with shallow flats and isolated rocks Cover: Stumps and scattered wood Forage: Threadfin shad, gizzard shad and bluegill Weather: Cool and partly sunny Wind: 5 to 10 mph Experts: A trio of Elite Series pros offer their insights for rounding up autumn bass 1 THE GRAND TOUR Matt Arey Shelby, N.C. First move: “I’ll ride the entire creek and look at every pocket and every piece of shoreline,” Arey said. “I will run on pad and graph at the same time. I’m looking for birds on the bank, a disturbance on the surface or disruptions on my 2D sonar that might show…

This year we are celebrating our biggest fans. From your best catches to interactions with the pros, we’d love to see your photos. Post to our social channels with #yearofthefan and you might be featured in an upcoming issue.…