Part One: Cranking Cover with the Jackall MC/60

Reading FLW Outdoors Magazines on a regular basis, you’ve probably noticed numerous articles on crankbaits – choosing the right ones, where and when to fish them, what the differences are between different properties and more. For some great crankbait tips go back and check out our March 2009 issue, May 2009 issue and our July 2009 issue.

One particular subject of interest to us personally that we’ve not covered much has been cranking shallow cover. We ran a piece on shallow cranking in general a couple years ago, but we’ve been doing quite a bit of shallow cranking this year on stump flats, around laydowns and other various shallow cover with great success and we’ve familiarized ourselves with a few new baits since then.

I have several favorites when it comes to shallow cranking. A Bomber Flat A, a Lucky Craft RC 1.5, and a Rapala DT6 are staples in my tackle box, and I throw them often when I’m fishing shallow. I’ve found certain banks, areas and even lakes where the fish just seem to bite one better than the other, so none of them are indispensable.

But one new lure I’ve found a new appreciation for this year is a Jackall MC/60. I’ve thrown both the SR (shallow runner) and MR (medium runner) a lot this year, and I was able to pull David Swendseid, Product Specialist Manager at Jackall – someone who thoroughly understands the science behind bait design, aside at ICAST and in several interviews since then, and he broke down this particular bait.

The Basics of Design

Crankbaits are tools. They can plow deep grass beds or rattle the bark off shallow logs. They can be burned, slow rolled, ripped and waked. They range in size from a thumbnail up to the size of your hand. And color offerings between all the manufacturers run the spectrum. What separates one tool from another is functionality.

The MC/60 was designed to be an all-terrain crankbait by lure-design mastermind, Seiji Kato. “The desire in building this crankbait was three fold,” Swendseid said. “First, Kato had to create a crankbait with actions similar to a perfectly balanced wood crankbait. But next, it had to have displacement characteristics able to push a significant amount of water. And last, it had to be capable of instantly regaining trajectory after colliding with an object.”

If you know anything about design theory, making a “vehicle” with a perfectly balanced action that can collide into something and then return to that perfect balance the instant it collides is not an easy task. Put that difficulty underwater, and now the designers have to contend with hydrodynamics compounded by an already erratic action.

“Many crankbaits inherit a problem known as ‘sliding’ or ‘jogging’ when colliding with cover,” Swendseid said. “The impact hinders the bait’s swim motion, fouling the lures tracking and oftentimes causes it to roll over axis with no return.”

So what’s that mean in laymen’s terms? Anyone who has fished crankbaits around shallow wood has seen it. The bait hits something. It kicks over on it’s side, and scoots along sideways, even rolling over and coming to the surface before getting the train back on the rails so to speak. The reason is most crankbaits are made to swim straight in open water. Bumping the bottom is something we as anglers do because we’ve all heard that the erratic action is what triggers fish into biting.

But it’s not just erratic action that triggers fish into feeding and that thought process drove the design of MC/60.

The MC/60 has a certain and specific circumference in the first third of the head region. Internally, there is an incorporated ballast system that rests directly on the lower floor of the bait’s keel. When the bait impacts an object, the force changes its trajectory along the object. However, when it is in the free space beyond the object, the weighted keel forces the bait back down and tracking true. The missing “meat” in the tail also allows for better hydrodynamics and less drag against the form and improved obstacle resistance.”

Simply put the bait rolls with the “hard knocks.”

Hyper Swimming -vs. Erratic Action

Crankbaits are as different as species of fish. They can have different designs, materials, shapes and sizes. To gain performance in a crankbait, however many factors come into play. Ballasts, surface planes, wall thicknesses and bill shapes all factor heavily into how the crankbait will track, balance, vibrate and swim. Sometimes the design creates an erratic action. Sometimes the way anglers fish a crankbait creates erratic action. Most anglers have been taught that the erratic action or change in action triggers strikes. Swendseid believes otherwise.

“Erratic action may not be the most effective movement of a crankbait,” Swendseid said. “It is one quality that may attract fish to bite, but it’s certainly not the only one. If a bass discovers a school of crappie or shad or singles out a tiny red ear or a rainbow trout, those prey swim linearly although in a hyper state. It is not erratic action, but rather quick intense movement in which bass key.”

Swendseid calls the ideal replication of this action in a crankbait Psycho-motor Agitation. Evolved predators can easily detect nervous micro-movements in prey. Because the flicker rate is so much faster in a bass’s eye than in a human eye, they see frames of movement in a much more still life captures where we see everything as a blur of movement. So a crankbait that has a rapid tight vibration will attract fish without the erratic action. Add an excellent wobble and vibration along with an uncanny ability to re-align tracking after collision, and the combination resulted in the Jackall MC/60.

Real-world applications

The editors have been throwing the MC/60 for several months now, and as you can see from some of the photos and signs of wear, the baits have been producing. From fish on stump flats, to bass around rock piles, to bass on points and humps and especially around rip rap, the bait has produced. The key is definitely in having a tight subtle wiggle around cover. It just feels like the bait comes over and around cover with a steady track and the bass really responded to our presentations.

Our favorite episode happened just this past weekend. We located some fish schooling on the surface in one of the bays on Kentucky Lake. We went over immediately and started catching the fish on poppers, walking topwaters and even a soft jerkbait. But we were seeing ten times as many fish as we were catching both on the surface on our graph. I picked up the Jackall MC/60 MR which runs maybe 7 feet. The bottom was 11 feet where we were and dropped off into 20 feet. What I noticed, however, is all the bass were streaking up into clouds of bait on the depth finder. I figured if I could run it by the bass just over their heads it might produce.

That proved to be a dramatic understatement when we boated our 50th fish. Three of us fishing, we literally argued over who got the one pair of pliers next. It was a race to get your bait back out there because we had three MC/60s going at once, and we caught them nearly every cast. While we did cull through a lot of short fish, we managed some nice 3- and 4-pound bass.

We experimented with other crankbaits but this one crankbait in this one depth was the ticket to consistent catches on that spot on that day. That’s not to say another crankbait wouldn’t work in another situation similar to that on another day. That’s the point to be made about crankbaits. They are tools. No one tool does every job and no one tool works everyday.

Just like tools, crankbaits are made very differently. Some tools work better than others. Some don’t work at all. And some work in places where there really hasn’t been a tool designed yet for that very specific task. It’s all about having the toolbox full of the “right tools” so that when the situation presents itself, we’re prepared.
 

Fishing is about mindsets, and mental fortitude often exceeds equipment in terms of importance. One of the biggest “psych-outs” in fishing occurs when an angler runs out of a lure that the fish are readily annihilating at that moment. Get the fish going, catching one after the other, and then it happens. Frantically reach into the tackle bag, flip open the tackle box full of plastics, and it’s not there. You start pulling out bags and bags of plastics. None left. This can’t be happening. The one thing the bass would eat, and there aren’t any more of them.

You make the switch to another lure but you’re second guessing yourself the whole time and your confidence starts to waiver. That leads to fishing faster, running spots and an overall anxiousness that derails your focus.

 That happened to me this year, and the day on the water was a nightmare. I later realized that was because my jig fishing had become so simplified, that missing one component left me empty handed. The whole system boiled down to one football jig and one simple trailer – a 3-inch Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw. I’m quite certain, worms not withstanding, that I could live with just that trailer. Now don’t get me wrong; I still love a Zoom Super Chunk Jr. on my finesse jigs in cold water or a Yum Craw Papi threaded on my flipping jigs on occasion when I need to mix and match a skirt and trailer better. But if I can only have one bag in my pocket, nine times out of ten it’s going to be a pack of green pumpkin 3-inch PowerBait Chigger Craws.

The reason is simple. After hundreds, more likely into the thousands, of bass caught on this trailer, I don’t see the point in changing a good thing. As some anglers can relate, I’ve fostered paranoia in thinking about a jig without that trailer. Now, if I’m not getting bit on the jig with a different trailer, the first thing I switch is the trailer. It does not matter what color jig or what color the water is. The first thing I do is revert back to my confidence trailer.

 Big bass were eating the PowerBait Chigger Craw so good in the spring, I was catching 20 to 40 bass on a ragged nub of a trailer – no claws or tentacles, just the tattered mass threaded up the hook shank. By the time it finally fell off it was impossible to lace a hook through it.

I’ve tried various jigs and trailers over the years, but I’ve never caught so many fish on any one trailer as I’ve now caught on the PowerBait Chigger Craw. So now I’ve spent the year stock piling my supply. When the bite is really on at Kentucky Lake, it’s nothing to go through 6 to 10 packs of trailers between me and my partner. That’s a lot of PowerBait Chigger Craws when you’re jig fishing. I wish I had a mold of one so I could melt all this PowerBait back down and mold it again!

 Now, some guys like the PowerBait Chigger Chunks and other guys like the 4-inch PowerBait Crazy Legs Chigger Craw, but I’ve settled on the 3-inch PowerBait Chigger Craw for several reasons. It’s not too bulky on a lighter jig. I can spider cut my skirts and thread the trailer up the shank of my jig hook and have a real small profile. I can bite (or cut because PowerBait doesn’t taste as good as garlic) the end off a trailer and run the hook through the middle like a chunk and give it a longer profile. When the fish bite one of the paddle arms off, I will unthread it, turn it so that one paddle is more like a keel on my jig and use just the one until another fish pulls that one off.

Sometimes when I’m casting big worms or other plastics, I’ll swap them out for the PowerBait Chigger Craw and pick up another keeper on a spot where they had been biting bigger plastics. It’s been a limit getter for me on occasion.

It can be a great punch bait for flipping heavy cover because of it’s small profile. I’ve caught countless bass out of the buck brush on them.

So you can say I’m officially a PowerBait Chigger Craw convert. My affliction is so bad now, that I feel naked when I can’t recall exactly where I have a pack of them. It’s that same feeling you have when you slam your locked car door shut, and you can’t feel your keys in your pocket.

So the question is why that bait. I know the PowerBait has something to do with it. I know the shape has something to do with it. And I know the action has something to do with it. But honestly it’s my personality more than anything. After using literally thousands of soft baits over the years, the choices got dizzying. So a few years ago, I started to simplify my choices – partly for my own sanity and partly because we fish in so many other people’s boats that packing a 40-gallon tub of soft baits wasn’t practical.
 
In fact, I’ve simplified the art of tackle storage, but I’ll save that for another blog this month. But basically now I have two boxes called boat boxes. One has the worms, trailers, and creatures I use most on my home waters in the colors I’ve proven work over the years. And one of those compartments is always completely full of PowerBait Chigger Craws.

I caught my personal best largemouth this year on a homemade football jig and PowerBait Chigger Craw. So maybe that’s why I’m stuck on just one trailer for now. The point being that we all get indecisive when we aren’t catching fish. Part of fighting through that is picking up something you have proven works and just plowing through those fishless periods.

It doesn’t mean we should quit experimenting with other soft baits and presentations. But I’ll continue to experiment with PowerBait Chigger Craws as well because they fit my fishing style and produce in a lot of situations. Perhaps I have yet to unlock their true potential, but I also know I won’t get psyched out with just that one trailer like I can with 50 trailers.

 

Well, travel and a few days of R&R sidetracked the ICAST blogs but we have a lot more from our second day of ICAST 2009. It was more of a whirlwind day for us. On day one we spent a lot of time in a few booths and on day two we had to spend a little time in a lot of booths. Even with the tornadic pace, There are so many new rods, reels, hard baits, soft baits, electronics, lines, apparel, tackle and other items I want to incorporate into our fishing next year. Someone asked me what my favorite thing at ICAST was. That’s always a tough question to qualify with a single answer. I had probably two or three favorite reels two or three favorite rods and two or three favorite baits in every category of baits from frogs to swimbaits and beyond. We’ll save my favorites for the Editor’s Choice edition of FLW Outdoors Magazine (Nov-Dec issue).

Wright McGill

The rods feature an S-Curve technology that is part blending of Tessera glass and graphite and other composites along with two new resins that are much lighter than common resins. The T-glass was borrowed from the extremely strong saltwater jigging rods WM makes, and because of the blending and resins, they were made to be light but extremely powerful rods.

The last components of the rods are the accessories like guides, reel seats and grips. The grip is a very comfortable, the reel seat features the feel-through blank design and the guides are increased in number over conventional rods because Reese doesn’t like any line slap as the line shoots through on a cast. Some of the guides were downright tiny some I’m excited to test them.

Lazer Trokar hooks hinted at something special and created a buzz leading up to the event. And not to disappoint the hooks were incredibly sharp, very strong and with some interesting designs. I don’t mean like “normal-hook” sharp I mean like “be-careful-to-avoid-a-trip-to-the-ER” sharp. They are surgically sharpened borrowing innovations from the medical profession. The hooks will supposedly take as little as a third of the effort to hook fish. That’s good news for anglers. The hook comes in several shapes and sizes including extra-wide-gap, straight shank flipping, offset worm, swimbait, oversized wide gap, drop shot and more.

Honestly Rapala releases too many great baits every year. I don’t even know where to begin here from Trolls-to baits to new Max Rap jerkbaits, Trigger X soft baits, Sufix stretch braid line, DT Thug crankbaits, etc. It was a lot of information to process. Then you throw in some cool new swimbaits from Storm and the new VMC treble hooks with the spark points and it’s enough to keep fishermen like us scheming on what to buy first.

I had many scheduled meetings on the first day of ICAST 2009 and that makes for a lot of time in only a few booths. Tomorrow I will spend a little time in a lot of booths. I've found more than anything at ICAST, that I have too many friends in this business. Great for the personal enjoyment of a great job, but horrible if you want to see 300 booths of 20 products each. You hate to cut anyone off, but it takes so much time just to move from booth to booth and get some meaningful information from each.

So here is recap of just some of the things I saw and found interesting at ICAST 2009 on Day One of the show.

Pure Fishing

Of course people will assume we started with Pure Fishing because of their sponsorship but the truth is this company is a monster in the sport fishing industry. They have a lot of great brands with a lot of new products, so it was the most logical place to start our ICAST show.

The Ripple Shad is a great new finesse swimbait. It's got an ultra-tight wiggle and a rapid vibrating tail. The ridges make for more surface area to expose PowerBait to the fish. They come in several great looking colors for both Fresh and Saltwater applications. I've been fishing this bait for a few months (thanks to a great partnership I have with Berkley where I get to test products long before they come to market and provide them with feedback and tweaks to the products to make them better). I like it on a standard swimbait hook. I've been adding some treble stingers for schooling fish. Trust me this is a great clearwater subtle bait and walleye anglers have been tearing the walleyes up with these 3-inch versions on jigheads. They have been a killer.

Berkley Trilene TransOptic is an extension of their Vanish Transition technology in the Monofilament market. The line is a bright goldish orange color above the water and turns translucent in the water. The line handles really well, seems very durable, casts beautifully and is really easy to see when trying to watch for subtle bites.

Abu Garcia Reels - The Revo S, SX and STX all got retooled and the most notable aspect I found is what they did with the braking systems. The STX has both a centrifugal braking system and the linear drag system. The great thing about this is you can set your pins and then fine tune it even further with the dial. This should make this reel one unbelievably tunable casting machine. The S and SX got a new system for the centrifugal brakes that will be copied through the entire line of Abu baitcasters. The new system has three pinch drag pins and three spring loaded pins. You can set your spring pins when you have to cast a light bait. The brakes will engage at first when you rare back and sling it as hard as you can. At the beginning of the cast the spool spins super fast. Then as the spool slows and the bait gets further out there the brakes spring back away allowing more free spool. This results in fewer backlashes and further casts.

The Pinch drags are your standard pins that you pop out permanently. These are good when you need that constant braking tension like when casting in high wind.

The Toro and Winch were combined to create a wide spool reel with a ton of low gear-ratio torque. It will be a high power reel for cranking and trolling with a lot of applications.

My favorite reel in the line-up is the Revo Orra. I got to test one of these in the prototype stages and was literally floored at how well it cast and handled for a mid-range reel. I loved that reel for everything from spinnerbaits, jigs, worms, flipping, jerkbaits, etc. It comes in at the $99 price point and offers an Aluminum frame with graphite components as well. The reel is low profile, light and a great performer at a great price.

The Revo Premiere looks awesome. We didn't get to take it apart and play with it at the show because of some issues with products being lost in transit - twice! But we're promised a close-up look tomorrow with Andrew the Australian reel guru for the Pure Fishing brands.

Vendetta and Vengeance rods. The Vendetta rods are slick looking in black, grey and red and matchup nicely to the redesigned Revo SX reels. The rod actions seemed very stiff to us. These are some powerful light rods at a good price point - $79-$89. Stetson Blaylock already has a tour level win on the rods at the National Guard Open on Lake Norman. The flipping stick was sweet and I really liked the 6'9" Jig worm rod.

Vengeance rods are a little lower price point $49-$59 and also powerful actions. The rods come in 10 spinning and 12 baitcasting models from L to H actions and lengths from 6 foot to 7 foot, 6 inch lengths.

Pflueger reels - I was most excited about the new wide/narrow spool on the Arbor SP reel. This reel looks awesome and Andrew reported this is the best handling reel he's ever used for fluorocarbon fishing line. Said the reel is ready for braid with a rubber braid strip on the spool and the wide spool lends itself to great casting and handling. We're excited about fishing with this new spinning reel and it comes in at $79.95. This reel will be a hot item for shaky heads and drop shot anglers all over the world.

Minn Kota

One of the coolest technologies we saw at the show today was the Minn Kota iPilot. This is an add-on system for electric controlled trolling motors. A replacement head and remote will give anglers the first gps driven control of their trolling motor. With this system you can tell it to track your path for 2 mile segments (up to 3 times) and then you can go back along your exact route. Even better is the Spot Lock feature that if you start to drift off your waypoint the trolling motor will engage when you're outside of a 5-foot circle from the waypoint and get you back on the spot. This will be invaluable to anglers fishing big water or fisheries commonly with a lot of wind.

Okuma

I like this company. They are real low key, but make great products at a real affordable price. We're very intrigued by their two baitcasters the Serrano and the Cayenne. The Serrano features a cool green color, is super light and has an unbelievable free spool. The reel is as low a profile as we've seen on a reel. It has 10 ball bearings including 5 ABEC Japanese bearings on the spool to make it a super free casting reel. It's got an aluminum frame and aluminum side housing the DuraBrass gears and a graphite side plate on the other side with easy access to the braking system.

We're definitely going to put this reel through the paces at we think will be around a $169 price point. The Cayenne is similar at 8 ball bearings and what they believe might be a $139 price point. Also features the aluminum frame and side plate housing the gears.

We also really liked the C3 and EVX b rods from Okuma. Great actions, great cosmetics, very low key Okuma branding on all makes for sharp looking high quality packages at moderate $149-159 and lower prices respectively.

SEBILE

We watched Patrick Sebile demonstrate his baits in the test tank. Sometimes I think shows like ICAST were invented for people like Patrick. He seems totally at home up there talking about fishing, situations and of course his creations.

The Magic Swimmer Soft Pro and Spin Shad baits were both impressive looking in the tank. I was most impressed with the slide on soft weights for the Soft Pro swimbait. You will basically get 3 baits, two hooks and like 5 weights. You slide the weights onto the hook in different increments to control the depth. The bait looked great in the tank, especially on the pause. The turn on a dime just like the hard version.

The Spin Shad is an interesting take on lead tail spinner bait. The spinner looks like another shad but has a treble hook back there. The bait has the same great details and concepts as the other hardbaits in Sebile's line. There are some interesting applications that come to mind for this bait like schooling fish, drop baits on ledges and bluff walls, etc.

Lowrance

The much anticipated and long awaited announcement was finally here. Lowrance introduced us to Structure Scan today. Quite frankly it's amazing. My favorite part of the announcement today was the captured stills of things they have looked at underwater. This thing saw a bus underwater and you could make out all the windows, the rear view mirrors and even the stripes down the sides because of the indentions where those were. There was a demo of a sunken ship where they showed what the ship looked like when it was in operation above the water. It was unreal how well you could make out every part of the ship.

They even showed Tarpon under docks where you could make out the fins on the fish with the structure scan technology. IT was crazy good detail. The most intriguing aspects to me were the add-on ability of the unit. You add a separate transducer on a flex-away bracket, you add the module that will attach to up to three graphs on your boat and then you connect with your Ethernet cables. So basically a guy can turn two or three units into structure scan units with one purchase now.

The other cool thing was the down scan. This unit looks left and right but it also looks straight down. IT was cool to split the screen and go over something with your graph and see what it looked like via sonar and then see the same thing via structure scan. This unit is going to educate a lot of anglers to become better sonar operators. Can't wait to use this on Kentucky Lake!!!

We saw a lot more, but quite frankly it's 1 am. I've got to get up in about 6 hours, so I'm going to call it a night and post more tomorrow. I'll apologize now for any typos. I'm whipped but wanted you to have a bunch of info from the first day!

Good Fishing to you all!

-Jason Sealock

Is it the anticipation or the calm before the storm? Is it the abruptly violent eruption from under the water? Is it the closeness of powerful hooksets and gut-wrenching fights through matted vegetation? I found myself asking these questions about the appeal of frog fishing. My best guess is all of the above.

Thousands of strikes later, my heart still skips a beat when a big fish blows up on a frog. It just takes you back for a second and you struggle to get coherent again and take up your slack for a jarring hookset. You know the one I’m talking about. Where it hurts your rib cage and your wrist so bad because the fish you set on didn’t budge.

Do I have your attention yet? Okay let’s talk about the newest player to the hollow-bodied frog market, the Tru-Tungsten Mad Maxx frog. Its design is not revolutionary, but it’s easy to tell a lot of thought went into the frog. Armed with a super sharp Mihatchi double hook, TT designed the frog with a sleek profile and angry 3D eyes. The frog is shaped so that it sits in the water low enough to get a good nose slap but can still walk the dog well. I do recommend a loop knot or split ring on the frog to help with walking the frog in smaller moves. If straight slapping is frog fishing to you, then connect directly to the line-tie and snap the wrist.

The stand out feature on the frog is the pro drain hole. This unique aspect allows water to escape out the back of the frog when it’s pulled from the water and cast again. No more squeezing the frog to get the water out (an annoying habit with other frogs on the market). With this design you never have to touch the frog until a bruiser bass gets a hold of it.

The plastic is more rigid than the rest of the hollow bodied frogs on the market. It appears it will withstand a lot of abuse. But time will tell with that as the “frog bite” isn’t the hot bite in most parts of the country yet so not a lot of feedback has come in yet on the durability aspect. But it does appear it will handle some abuse.

The frogs come equipped with tungsten rattles, a great feature for those of us that insert rattles into our frogs for added enticement.

The designers at Tru-Tungsten applied some phenomenal paint schemes to the frogs including the bottoms of the frogs, a spot often overlooked by frog makers.

Ridges and grooves are carved all along the frog giving it unique body and depth in design.
The pricing seems a little more competitive than other frogs of this quality. If you’re a serious frog fisherman, they are worth the price to check them out for yourself.

I took the frogs to Kentucky Lake the last week in June. Our grass was slow to start growing this year due to high waters this spring, so there isn’t much matted grass to throw the frogs around yet. However, I saw a nice opening under two overhanging bushes and skipped my frog way up underneath the limbs. On about the third nose slap of the frog, the water erupted and a nice bass rolled up on the frog.

Of course, as is common with frog fishing, I couldn’t control my reflexes on the first strike and jerked the frog away before the bass loaded up. In all honesty, I didn’t believe a bass would be up that shallow in 93-degree water without more grass or substantial cover there. So the blame on that missed opportunity is on my shoulders, not the Mad Maxx.

So far my favorite color is Gremlin. The frogs were introduced in seven colors. However, I’ve begged and pleaded for more colors, and apparently a few other professional anglers have as well. TT sources told me last week there are a few new colors coming as well including white and/or maybe yellow.

Seriously, get some of these frogs and go to your best matted vegetation lake and let me know how you do. I want to know and see some pictures of your results.

Good Fishing,

Jason Sealock

GPS is the first function. By pressing this button, you are whisked through your map to your current location – invaluable when running from spot to spot without leaving the iPhone out and active the whole time.

One thing I found useful was to come up with a good naming scheme for your favorites. I’ve already got 20 or 30 in my phone and it’s hard to figure out which ones I should use. So I’ve gone back and dated when I found schools on those spots or denoted when I found a big fish on a spot. For example, I might mark a big fish spot with 6LB-0609. If I find multiples I might do Sch-0609a. Something I can search easily by date, whether it was a school, or maybe even by a piece of cover like grassbed, stump, brushpile or some other feature.

With WP, anglers can plot the distance and route from one location on a map to another. This can be invaluable, if you want to hit one spot way down the lake and make it back before weigh-in. Figure out how far it is by tracking points along the way that you will take by water. Most people who are familiar with GPS units on their boats will mistake WP for Favorites. WP is a routing function, while Favorites is a fishing spot logging function.

Good Fishing!

Jason Sealock

Just a few photos from the Walmart Open in a little different format. Let me know if you want to see more of these in the future!

Tim Klinger fights a keeper largemouth to the boat on day two of the Walmart Open on Beaver Lake. Klinger finished 13th in the event.

Dave Lefebre runs to another spot on day two of the Walmart Open on Beaver Lake. Lefebre had his best showing at Beaver Lake with a 28th place finish.

Lefebre sets the hook and fights one to the boat

Chevy pro Luke Clausen flips the flooded timber on Beaver Lake during the Walmart Open

Iams pro Vic Vatalaro waves as he blasts off for his next spot on Beaver Lake during the Walmart Open.

Terry Bolton flipped and shook a worm on Beaver Lake during the Walmart Open.

Checklists and Border Crossings

I shared a boat with professional angler Marty Stone that first morning. He and I stumbled onto a deeper-than-usual pattern revolving around deep rock and Carolina rigs and Zoom Mag Finesse Worms, Zoom 8-inch lizards and Berkley Power Worms. We managed to communicate with broken Spanish to our guide that we wanted to fish some deep rocks. He took us to a spot that fit our weak translation, and to say it was the right choice was a horrendous understatement. We boated 50 bass between 4 and 7 pounds in very short order.

Good Fishing!

Here are a few more photos from our trip. Expect a full destination piece on El Salto opportunities later this year in FLW Outdoors magazine.

• Going Deep: Crankbaits (10/13)
• Down to One (10/13)
• ICAST 2009 - Day Two Recap (10/13)
• ICAST 2009 - Day One Recap (10/13)
• FROM THE WATER - Tru-Tungsten Mad Maxx Frog (10/13)
• A Fresh and Useful Application for iPhone Anglers (10/13)

• Lessons Learned (05/28)
• ON THE LAKE - Walmart Open (05/15)

• Checklists and Border Crossings (03/04)
• Pounds and Inches (03/04)

• How to Get Spots Out (11/25)
• Why I'm not David Fritts (11/13)
• HAPPY VOTE DAY! (11/04)

• Like it was yesterday... (10/29)
• Reelfoot Lake - Speaking the Language (10/15)
• My Glass is Half Full Now (10/07)

• Roosevelt Lake - The Fishing Gets Good at 6pm (09/25)
• Roosevelt Lake Near Payson, Ariz. - The Wild Wild West (09/21)
• Happy Labor Day Friends! (09/01)

• Added Some Photos for Your Viewing Pleasure (08/28)
• Welcome to my Blog Space! (08/27)