THE WIRED ANGLER

(Update) Video Of Potential World Record Largemouth Bass

I was scouring the web and found this video on Youtube. It appears to be a news clip out of Japan.

Possible New World Record Largemouth Bass

Well - a lot of you may have heard the story already about today's potential World Record Largemouth bass being caught in Japan.

I did not want to post anything earlier because I could not find anything new pertaining to the story this morning. I guess now all we can do is wait and see if it holds.

Here is one of the links I found with the story
   Link

"Spring Fling" Trout Blugill

I just painted this up the other day and figured I would share it with you guys just for fun.
I have been prototyping and working on a couple new baits, I am hoping to have a least a sneek peek soon.
It will be a soft plastic bait available in floating and sinking if everything works out well. A good friend has been sharing in the effort on this one and I will be able to disclose some more info soon.

Fishin With The Revenge Viberator

I started fishing chatter bait style baits a couple years back and have had some pretty good days on them. I love fishing them around heavy cover and large grassy areas where a lot of water needs to be covered.

The first thing that sold me on the Revenge Baits is the attention to detail in the design. It is pretty amazing how much detail is put into the painting of each bait. All of the heads are original designs, intricately hand carved during the design process. Add in the custom Viberator stainless blade and long front wire design and this is one well thought out bait, not just a jig with a blade thrown on the front.

Secondly, I really like the fact that these baits are available up to 1 oz in size. I don't like fishing light tackle or light baits if I can avoid it. The more practical reasons for this have a lot more to do with the fact that I like fishing in current and wind as well.

Where and when to fish these baits I'm still finding out myself. I have had luck shallow in and near cover, deep on rocky bottom and near bluffs, around docks and pretty much all over the frigging place. Pretty much anywhere you would throw a spinnerbait or a crank bait.

The thing I find pretty fasinating about the Viberator baits is the ability to match so many different types of forage just by changing the color and type of trailer you fish with it. Here are some of my favorite combos here.

 

Check out the Revenge site here

Russian Fishing Videos

I was sent links to these videos by Andrei Medvedev of the Fion.ru Russian fishing club [Warning: web site is all in Russian. If you speak Russian, by all means drop me a line and let me know what it says]. They're not bass fishing obviously, but they are kind of awesome. 

The carrot lure catching a pike is pretty damn funny

I found this one on his YouTube stream - called 'Twitching, Russian Style Fishing" Basically just fishing mini jerk baits. It is always interesting to see how other people fish around the world

"Nate's Baits" New 8" Trout Sneak Peek

I recently got a hold of one of Nate's Baits new 8" Trout baits and gave it a go.

Upon receiving the bait I knew it was going to find its way into my rod compartment and not just in my endless pile of shit.

The bait comes in at just under 8", but I won't hold it against him.

Shown here next to his 11" trout bait to show the size difference, as well as the design similarities.

I first got a chance to throw the bait up at Clear Lake last weekend and was very impressed to say the least. The action and consistency of the bait is actually better than his 11" version. The 8" trout has a great tail action with little to no roll and can be fished fast or slow with no variation.

This thing is going to be a spotted bass killer in my book, (not that it won't be a good largemouth bait as well). I got the floater which will actually crank down and fish about a foot below the surface. As usual, the bait comes with Owner hooks and construction quality is top notch.

You can check out Nate's site at naitsbait.com

I am not sure when it will be readily available, however it will be worth the wait.

Past vs. Present Part Deux

The two baits that will fish in a head to head battle have been stripped to their birthday suits.

 

The craftmanship on the old plug is crazy. It has a full wire-through loom and the hooks had to be cut off. I honestly don't even know if split rings existed when this bait was made. I will have to add split rings as a result but will try to match the original hooks as best I can when re assembling the bait.

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 Now the baits have a thick coat of rock hard epoxy primer

I will get them sanded and painted next week and ready them for the face off. Stay tuned

Clear Lake State Park Spared? More on the State Park Proposed Closures

According to the Press Democrat, Clear Lake State Park will not be on the list, but Anderson Marsh in Lower Lake may be. Current discussions on Plan B options seem to be on raising entrance fees to $10-12.

More here: 220 State Parks Could Face Closure

If you have not already, go over to the official Save the Parks site to read the details, and send letters to your state representatives.

Save our State Parks

State Parks (Including Clear Lake) in Danger of Closing - Sign the Petition

"Today, the Governor took aim at California's treasured state parks, releasing a budget that contains the most draconian cuts ever considered for the state park system," declared Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF).  "Never before have so many parks, and such a diversity of state parks, state historic parks, state recreation areas, and state beaches been placed on the chopping block. The millions of Californians who visit their parks will not tolerate this and will lead the fight to keep our state parks open."

As many of you may have already heard, Governor Schwarzenegger is threatening to close down 48 California State Parks as part of his budget cuts. The list includes Clear Lake State Park, which has over 100,000 annual visitors. The budget cuts may go as far as closing over 200 parks in total over 2 years.

According to the Contra Costa Times:

"If there were a huge reduction in state spending, perhaps extensive park closures would make sense. But that is not the case.

In fact, the savings from closing the parks would be only one-quarter of 1 percent of the state's budget deficit, according to Goldstein. That is hardly enough to justify such a drastic action."

It is important for all of us who love having access to these places to show our support and send letters and sign petitions to get this removed. Not only are there great fishing spots included, but these are beautiful (and affordable) places that people take their families to hike and go camping.

The California State Parks Foundation has created a web page with a list of the proposed park closures, their annual attendence, and the amount of revenue they bring in. It seems stupid to close these places, not only because we like to visit them, but also because of the revenue loss and the job losses that the closures would mean. Not to mention the risks of vandalism and garbage, etc, that would come from leaving these places unpatrolled.

Here's the link to the list of proposed closures of California State Parks

• Here is a direct link to the online petition
• You can make a direct donation to the State Parks here
• Here is the new "Save our State Parks" web site

Further Reading

Article in the Contra Costa Times 

LA Times  

SF Weekly 

San Francisco Chronicle

Past vs. Present - Are You Ready To RUMBLE!!!

 

Like a lot of anglers, I have been collecting old lures for many years now and have never even once tied one on to see how it worked.

I was pondering this just this morning and came to a conclusion: why not put a modern lure head-to-head, mano a mano with a vintage bait? Since I'm not one to sit on my ass and over-think these things, here we are.

I have had an old South Bend Jointed Pike-Oreno sitting on my shelf next to my paint station for a couple years now, so this was the first bait to come to mind. I wanted to show how little basic bait design has changed over the last decade. Sure, there have been many innovations - don't get me wrong, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find a worth competitor that was similar in design and size. I started lookingaround and there sitting on another bench shoved in a pile of swimbaits between a couple broken Castaics and a few early Snack Size Trouts and behind my rod wrapping machine was a brand new MS Slammer. As happens so often at times like this, a light bulb went off in my head.

This was to be the Pike-Orenos adversary.

Here's the basic plan: I will take the South Bend Pike-Oreno from the mid 1950's and the MS Slammer from October of 2008 and repaint them with the same pattern to even out the competition a little.

I will then plan a couple trips - probably one on the Delta and one on Clear Lake. At this point a friend and I will fish the baits head-to-head and see what the outcome is in sort of a war of the ages.

So stay tuned  - my next post will be the tear down restoration and repaint of these two baits.