By Brett Carlson

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. – Perhaps no lake in the entire United States receives more fishing pressure than Alabama’s Lake Guntersville. Yet tournament after tournament, year after year, the Big “G” continues to produce stunning sacks of largemouth bass. No matter if it’s a local derby or a national tournament like the FLW Tour – if you’re not over 20 pounds, you’re not even in the discussion.

But as the pressure mounts, the information cat is slowly let out of the bag. While Guntersville is still red-hot, the days of sitting on one spot for four consecutive days are pretty much gone. Essentially, there are no secrets on Guntersville anymore. The new buzzwords in northern Alabama are adaptability and versatility. That’s what it will take to succeed this week at the Tour’s final qualifier.

TVA expert Mark Rose plans to fish offshore on day one of the FLW Tour event on Lake Guntersville. “I’ve got six or seven offshore places that I really like,” said TVA expert Mark Rose. “The problem is that I’ve seen a boat on just about every one of them during practice. But that doesn’t necessarily bother me. I’ll see what’s taken and rotate from there.”

Rose said Guntersville is currently experiencing a typical summertime bite.

“It’s like any other TVA lake – there’s a morning bite, there’s an afternoon bite and if they’re pulling current then there’s a midday bite. The guys that can catch them during the midday when they’re not pulling current are the ones that will separate themselves.”

The consensus among the anglers is that the event will likely be won offshore, but that doesn’t mean other patterns won’t come into play.

“The offshore bite is the bite that has the most pressure,” explained Rose. “I tend to think it will be won offshore but I would not be surprised if it was won in the grass. The grass is just starting to top out in some places and those are the most virgin fish, so to speak.”

As always, catching a five-bass limit shouldn’t be a problem. But a 12-pound limit on Guntersville is roughly the equivalent of catching 4 or 5 pounds on a normal lake. The key is finding the 5-pound fish. But that’s much easier said than done.  Click Link Below for full story!

via Big ‘G’ fishing surprisingly small – FLW Outdoors.

By James Card

GIBSON COUNTY LAKE, Tenn. — The college freshmen Jake Lawrence and Jacob Hardy have two priorities: getting good grades and catching big fish. Standing on the deck of a 20-foot-long bass boat on a 560-acre lake in west Tennessee, they almost look like two tanned brothers. They wear the same uniform of flip-flops, wraparound polarized sunglasses, frayed Bethel University ball caps, and fishing shirts plastered with sponsor logos.

Garry Mason, the coach of Bethel University’s fishing team, with the freshman Lauren Stamps on a lake in Tennessee.

They room together, go to school together and fish together. And Bethel University brought them together as the first students in America to receive an athletic scholarship for competitive bass fishing. This week, these boys of summer will make room on their boat for another team member, Lauren Stamps, the first woman in the United States to receive a scholarship for bass fishing and one of a handful of women to compete on the nearly all-male college circuit.

The growth of collegiate bass-fishing tournaments caught the eye of Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn. There are an estimated 220 college bass-fishing clubs throughout the United States and Canada, according to collegebass.com, an ESPN-partnered Web site. The Bethel administrators decided that a strong bass-fishing team could be a good recruiting tool, so they officially recognized it as a sport, included it in their athletic department’s budget, and hired Garry Mason, a professional hunting and fishing guide, to be their coach. Scholarships range from $1,000 to $4,000 a year.

“We’re looking for a mix of a background in fishing and good academics,” Mason said. “We’re not looking for the Michael Jordan of the fishing world.”  Click Link Below for Full Story!

via Seeking Recruiting Edge, Colleges Turn to Fishing – NYTimes.com.

By John Zenor (CP)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Ray Scott helped make bass fishing big business. Now, he’s created a business out of his personal playground.

The founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society and well-known fishing impresario has launched his own BB&B: bed, breakfast and bass.

Ray Scott’s Trophy Bass Retreat opened in January, offering use of the three lakes on his suburban Montgomery property that have hosted presidential fishing excursions, as well as stays in the guesthouse where former U.S. president George H.W. Bush bunked down on several visits. Of course, the fish are big and so are the prices.

A group of six from Birmingham happily plunked down US$550 apiece recently to fish from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with a couple of meals and use of Scott’s boats thrown in.

Sporting a huge fish and a big grin, Chris Thompson figured he got plenty of bass for his buck.

“This is worth everything out here,” Thompson said, posing for pictures with his 10-pound, 12-ounce bass. It’s catch and release, so he had to toss it back in The Presidents Lake. (For a price, Scott has a taxidermist who will make a replica based on weight and size).

If visitors want to stay in the two-bedroom guesthouse used by the first president Bush, it’s US$1,950 per person for three nights and two days. A day and a half of fishing and a one-night stay is US$860 each.  Click Link Below for Full Story!

via The Canadian Press: BASS founder Ray Scott opens personal fishing retreat with presidential allure.

BY JAVIER SERNA – Staff Writer

And right now, before spring sizzles into summer, is when he makes extra time to fish for largemouth bass using top-water baits, that array of lures worked on water’s surface that can elicit some of the most exciting strikes in the sportfishing realm. This is one of the best times of the year to fish on top at Harris, Petty said.

Chris White, owner of The Tackle Box in Fuquay-Varina, set me up with Petty.

In bass fishing, there’s nothing like having a hefty largemouth ambush a surface lure, seeing a wake come up behind the lure and witnessing the fish leave the water completely.   Click Link Below for Full Story!

via Top-water lures can induce bass strikes – Outdoors – NewsObserver.com.

From the story in Illinois’s Springfield State Journal-Register:

The Illinois High School Association has hooked more schools to participate in its one-of-a-kind state championship bass-fishing tournament this year. Eleven central Illinois schools will compete in the sectional tournament April 23 at Lake Sangchris. Top finishers will go on to compete in the state finals at Carlyle Lake May 7-8. So far, 225 schools are entered, up from 199 in 2009.

“I’m pleased we have 26 more additions,” says Dave Gannaway, Illinois High School Association assistant executive director. “Schools are financially strapped, and they are trying to figure out how to keep the sports and activities they have. “It’s not a good time to add activities or sports, so I’m pretty amazed we have this increase.”

As more and more schools offer angling as a sport, do you think it will ever attain the same level of acceptance as more traditional high school sports? For all you ex-high school jocks out there, would you be happy to see your sons (or daughters) give up football or baseball for a baitcaster?

via Is Bass Fishing the Next Big High School Sport? | Field & Stream.

D’Arcy Egan

Plain Dealer Columnist

Celebrated videographer Glen Lau has been hooked on bass for more than a half- century.

Lau’s most famous videos, “Bigmouth” (1973) and “Bigmouth Forever” (1996), featured Florida’s largemouth bass. He also helped with “Hooked on Bass,” which can be seen on the National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. next Saturday.

Lau’s favorite bass fishing hole, though, is still Lake Erie. He grew up as a barefoot boy on the muddy banks of the Maumee River, casting with a hand line wrapped around a beer bottle, eager to catch anything that would bite. Lau became a fishing guide in 1958, a rare occupation back when few owned boats, taking out a couple of anglers or waterfowl hunters each day in a little 16-foot fiberglass boat he docked at Channel Grove Marina on Marblehead.

Lau guaranteed his customers they would catch fish or didn’t have to pay his $25 guide fee. It was a bet he never lost in a decade of guiding.

And Lau, 73, never lost his passion for bass fishing.

“First and foremost, I guided for bass,” said Lau, “I’d take people after walleye and yellow perch, but bass were No. 1.”

Bass were on Lau’s mind this week as he introduced his Ocala, Fla., neighbor, Hoyt Gibson, and Gibson’s bass-loving sons, Greg and Jeff, to Lake Erie’s premier smallmouth bass fishing. I joined them on the final day of the week-long catch-and-release adventure, and we talked about his activist days.

Lau was among the first to demand that Ohio officials protect Lake Erie.

“To promote my guide service, I wanted to win the King of Ohio Fishing contest held by the Columbus Citizen [-Journal] newspaper,” said Lau. “I fished every day, catching 2,900 pounds of Lake Erie fish over six weeks to win it.”

The newspaper title gave the 25-year-old guide the platform to speak for his favorite fishing hole, as well as challenge Ohio’s lake managers, commercial fishermen and even the forces building the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant on the western Lake Erie shoreline.

He wrote articles in local newspapers, attended Columbus meetings and hearings, carried a video show he filmed to area sportsmen’s groups and weathered threats and criticism from the commercial fishing industry.  Click Link Below for full story!

via Bass videographer Glen Lau returns to his favorite fishing hole, Lake Erie – Cleveland.com.

There are those who will disagree with Jed Pearson’s position that there is no reason to have a closed season on Indiana largemouth bass during the spawning season, which is now.

They can argue the point with Pearson, a Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist, but he said his position is based on a study that shows a 27-year trend, and not on his personal opinion.

Indiana discontinued its closed season in 1948.

The argument for a closed season is that nests should be protected during the spawn; that catching male and female largemouth bass reduces the bass population in the state’s natural lakes.

Not true, Pearson said.

Then there’s the ethical issue of disturbing bass when they are nesting. Pearson doesn’t address that issue in a report he released this month, leaving it to the angler to decide.

Even the novice bass fisherman knows the best time to be successful is during the spawn. That’s when it’s easy to find bass — usually large bass — moving around at or near their fanned-out, circular shoreline nests.

And that is when many bass tournaments are held in Indiana.  Click link below for full story.

via Biologist’s study supports open season on bass | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star.

By Chris Young

GateHouse News Service

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. —

Illinois will make history April 24 when 400 boats take to the water all over the state for the first-ever high school bass-fishing tournament anywhere.

The top 54 teams will advance to the state championship May 8-9 on Carlyle Lake northwest of Centralia. Three boats from each of 18 sectionals will advance.

Qualifiers will be allowed a day of pre-fishing to practice on May 7.

Dave Gannaway, the Illinois High School Association’s assistant executive director in charge of the fishing series, said the interest in the tournament is surprising.

“We had to open up 18 sectionals to accommodate the huge interest,” he says. “Almost all of them are entering two boats, so up to six kids can fish from each school.”

“I thought we might get 100 schools and each of them would have one boat,” Gannaway says. “I thought we might need to have six or seven lakes open.”

Instead, he is organizing 18 tournaments at 18 lakes.  Click link below for full story

via Illinois to hold nation’s first high school bass-fishing tournament – Norwich, CT – Norwich Bulletin.

Sunday, September 07, 2008 MIKE BOLTONNews staff writer

It took just one catch from Auburn’s Steve Kennedy last year to turn a simple, seldom-used fishing lure into a bass fishing legend.

It was no ordinary catch and the ramifications are still being felt all the way from California to the East Coast.

Kennedy used a swimbait, a soft-plastic baitfish replica, to catch 122 pounds, 14 ounces of bass over four days while fishing at California’s Clear Lake last year. The catch not only gave Kennedy his first Elite Series win, it was good enough to shatter the all-time Bassmaster catch record for a four-day tournament.

The palm-sized bait Kennedy used in that tournament last year produced an incredible 32 pounds, 10 ounces of bass on the final day and allowed him to overtake third-day leader Greg Gutierrez of California.

As several of the pros began using swimbaits and winning other tournaments last year, it was only natural that the bait found its way into the tackle boxes of weekend bass fishermen in Alabama.

The swimbait is, of course, not new. Sassy Shads and the once Alabama-made Prissy Shad were staples in Alabama tackle boxes 20 years ago. Anglers who fish for striped bass and hybrid bass below Alabama dams have never quit using them. Full Story

Wise bass fall for swimbaits – al.com.

By Kaimi Rose Lum

GateHouse News Service

Posted Aug 28, 2008 @ 02:26 PM

TRURO — Should striped bass be available to all types of fishermen, commercial and recreational? Or should it be enjoyed by one exclusive group?

That’s a no-brainer to members of “Stripers Forever,” a fraternity of leisure fishermen based in Portland, Maine. They want to ban the commercial harvest of striped bass in Massachusetts and give the fishery over to recreational anglers only.

“Our sole goal is gamefish status,” says Craig Caldwell, the organization’s policy director for Massachusetts. Designating the bass as a gamefish, which the group hopes to do via a bill that it plans to introduce into the state Legislature this fall, would make it off-limits to anyone but sportfishermen.

“Our reasoning really goes toward the long-term conservation of the fish,” he says, reasoning that preventing commercial fishermen from taking striped bass would leave the bigger female fish in the sea and allow more breeding to occur. He suggests that the poor showing of striped bass in local waters these past few weeks may be related to the depletion of big fish by commercial fishermen.  Full Story

Anglers’ group seeks ban on commercial bass fishing – Quincy, MA – The Patriot Ledger

Staff Photo/Vincent Guadazno