THE LATEST NEWS
Morgenthaler & Tharp – it’s all about Gamma Edge
GAMMA EDGE 100% fluorocarbon line is the one line that does it all, giving you a true competitive EDGE! GAMMA’S exclusive process provides desired attributes such as sensitivity, castability, strength, abrasion resistance, invisibility and shock resistance.
Get all of your Gamma here.
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Army Bass Anglers join Forces with Livingston Lures
Big news came out of the Army Bass Anglers / Skeeter U convention this past weekend. ABA president Cody Roberson announced that the ABA will be joining forces with Livingston Lures. Get all the details here.
Find out more about the Army Bass Anglers here.
See the entire Livingston Lures lineup here.
Brent Chapman: 2015 Could Be the “Year of the Squarebill”
This might sound odd to some, but every Bassmaster Elite Series season has a personality. Certain trends develop over the course of eight tournaments, and they can define how the season plays out.
To me, the 2014 season seemed to be dominated by soft plastics and a shallow-water bite. Looking back at many of our fisheries in 2014 – Lake Seminole, the St. John’s River, Toledo Bend – you could say that the personality of the season was extremely favorable to soft plastics, but they weren’t the only factor in how the season played out.
I love to fish cranks and topwater, and thankfully there were other fisheries and opportunities for that type of bite. Randy Howell won the Classic on the Howeller DMC with Electronic Baitfish Sounds (EBS™) Technology, and I had a great finish in our last regular-season tournament of the year at Lake Cayuga in New York thanks in large part to the Dive Master 14 and 20 in XXX Shad.
I had started the season off slowly on Lake Seminole and the St. John’s River (which was a bed-fishing deal all the way), and then got a little of my mojo back on Table Rock, which is a good crankbait lake in general. I built a little more momentum at Toledo Bend, and headed into Dardanelle thinking I’d turned things around, feeling like that tournament would be won flipping, but I missed the bite and that one really punched me in the gut.
It turned out to be a squarebill deal, and I just missed it. That one really hurt. I ended on a good note at Cayuga, though (I finished seventh), and I plan to carry that momentum forward into the 2015 season.
A “Cranky” 2015
I look at the potential personality of the 2015 Elite Series schedule, and it seems pretty obvious that crankbaits will play a key role. If you look at just the most obvious ones, you’ll see places like Kentucky Lake, which is very well known to be a huge cranking lake. I’m obviously excited about that fishery because it should be just perfect for the new Deep Impact 18, Howeller Deep and Howeller Deep Plus with EBS Multi-Touch Technology™ that we’ve been working on.
I can see the final tournament of the year, on Lake St. Clair, being a very similar bite. I’ve caught them well at St. Clair on a deep-diving crank, and I figured something out on that fishery on the final day when we fished it in 2013 that I’m excited to follow up on when we go back up there.
The Year of the Squarebill
Looking at the rest of the schedule, I can see 2015 shaping up to be the “year of the squarebill”. The first tournament of the year, on the Sabine River in Texas, could be a squarebill deal because we’ll be dealing with shallow, stained water. We’re fishing the Sabine a little later in the spring than we did in 2013, so it’s going to be even muddier than last time – I can see EBS MultiTouch sound technology really coming into play in that dirty water.
From there we go right to Guntersville, and of course the secret is kinda out of the bag there because that’s where the Howeller DMC was introduced. I can see Guntersville shaping up to be a squarebill deal, though, and there’s no reason why the Howeller DMC SQ won’t do very well there.
When we head out West, I can see both a squarebill and a lipless crank doing well on the California Delta, and a squarebill should be a major player when we come back East to fish Chesapeake Bay. I haven’t had a lot of experience on that fishery, but I think it just fits right into my style. The only place I can compare it to is the Potomac River, and I’ve always done well there on – guess what – a squarebill and topwater.
It won’t be long before it’ll be time to start getting in shape and getting tackle ready for the 2015 season, and I’m really looking forward to the schedule. It’ll be interesting to see how the personality of the season develops, and I’m excited about the fact that the fisheries are a lot more conducive for the hard baits in my arsenal to be a bigger player.
Find out more about Livingston Lures here.
Keep up with Brent on his Facebook page.
Connecticut’s Paul Mueller Wins B.A.S.S. Nation Championship On Ouachita
MONROE, La. — When it counts, Paul Mueller knows how to catch a big limit of fish. That’s what he did on the final day of the 2014 Old Milwaukee B.A.S.S. Nation Championship on the Ouachita River, when his 14-pound, 9-ounce sack earned him the top spot and the Bryan V. Kerchal Memorial Trophy.
Mueller, of Naugatuck, Conn., has a track record of catching the big ones when he needs them. He did it earlier this year at the 2014 GEICO Bassmaster Classic when, after a dismal first day that threatened to eliminate him from competition, he went and caught 32 pounds, 3 ounces — the biggest five-bass limit in Bassmaster Classic history — to show that he was still in the game.
Mueller’s final three-day weight on the Ouachita was only a little more than his one-day record-busting bag in the Classic at 32 pounds, 15 ounces. But for the Ouachita River during this tournament, that was enough, by far, to secure the top crown — and a second shot at the Bassmaster Classic.
“This is incredible,” said Mueller after his win. “I’ve been thinking about the Bassmaster Classic all year. Anytime you get a chance to fish against the best in the sport, it’s amazing.”
Mueller bested the rest of the field by a significant margin. In second place was Coby Carden of Alabama, who finished more than 7 pounds back with 25 pounds, 9 ounces. Behind Carden was Jeff Lugar of Virginia, who had 25-2. Interestingly, all of the Top 3 went to the Classic last year together as rookies, and all three of them are returning with back-to-back berths.
Mueller’s victory came courtesy of just two lures: a 4-inch soft plastic Reins craw tube in black blue fleck and a Zoom WEC E1 square bill crankbait in chartreuse shad.
“I fished in Horseshoe Creek all three days,” said Mueller. “It took an hour to get back in there. You have to go through Moon Lake and then a little canal that goes back. It’s really shallow.”
A water drop on Day 2 hurt many competitors who couldn’t get back to their areas because the low water made them unnavigable by a bass boat. For Mueller, it made it a little harder to get there, but it didn’t keep him out.
“Every day, I threw the crankbait in the morning before the sun came up,” he said. “The fish were off the trees in the roots. Then, when the sun came up, I’d go to areas that create shade, fishing deeper cypress trees, around 3 to 6 feet.”
On Days 1 and 2, the majority of his weight came in the later hours on the tube, but on the final day, the crankbait produced more for him.
His first two days, he brought in sacks around 9 pounds. On the final day, he had 13 1/2 pounds by 11 a.m. Then he felt comfortable with his lead and headed back, hoping to get in before any treacherous water or boat trouble — both problems that have plagued his competitors the last two days — could affect him getting in on time. He got back to the ramp 2 hours early.
“So I just hit a couple of boat docks not far from the check-in area — the corners of boat docks that had a little bit of brush on it — and I upgraded with a 3 3/4-pounder,” said Mueller. The late-in-the-day catch pushed him to nearly 15 pounds for the day. It was the biggest bag of the tournament.
What made the difference on Day 3 was that the changing water level drove dirty water into his area, which pushed the shad back. Bait was in the area, then, that hadn’t been there the previous two days. That’s when he started experimenting with his Zoom crankbait, fan casting it into the roots of cypress trees, right onto a ledge that dropped 3 to 5 feet.
In a tournament in which the average fish only weighed 1 1/2 pounds, Mueller averaged 3 pounds per fish on Day 3, a huge difference in a small-fish tournament.
Along with Mueller, Carden and Lugar, three other anglers earned qualifications to compete in the 2015 GEICO Bassmaster Classic, and all three will be Classic rookies. Teb Jones of Mississippi, Steve Lund of Arizona and Troy Diede of South Dakota will join Mueller and company on the biggest stage in bass fishing.
“I always dreamed of making the Bassmaster Classic, but I never thought it would come true,” said Lund. It was a sentiment echoed by comrades Diede and Jones.
Mueller may have ended the tournament with the biggest bag, but Carden ended with the Carhartt Big Bass of the tournament for a 4-10 he caught on Day 1. He’ll earn a $500 from Carhartt for his efforts, in addition to the $250 he won with the Livingston Lures Leader Award for leading on Day 2.
Keep up with Mueller and the other five Classic contenders between now and the 2015 GEICO Bassmaster Classic, Feb. 20-22 on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell, at Bassmaster.com.
2014 B.A.S.S. Nation Title Sponsor: Old Milwaukee
2014 B.A.S.S. Nation Official Sponsors: Toyota, Bass Pro Shops, Berkley, Evan Williams Bourbon, Humminbird, Mercury, Minn Kota, Nitro Boats, Skeeter Boats, Triton Boats, Yamaha
2014 B.A.S.S. Nation Supporting Sponsors: Boat US, Booyah, Carhartt, Diet Mountain Dew, Livingston Lures, Lowrance, Plano, Power-Pole, Rigid Industries, Shimano
About B.A.S.S.
B.A.S.S. is the worldwide authority on bass fishing and keeper of the culture of the sport. Headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., the 500,000-member organization’s fully integrated media platforms include the industry’s leading magazines (Bassmaster and B.A.S.S. Times), website (Bassmaster.com), television show (The Bassmasters on ESPN2), social media programs and events. For more than 45 years, B.A.S.S. has been dedicated to access, conservation and youth fishing.
The Bassmaster Tournament Trail includes the most prestigious events at each level of competition, including the Bassmaster Elite Series, Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Open Series presented by Allstate, Old Milwaukee B.A.S.S. Nation events, Carhartt Bassmaster College Series, Bassmaster High School Series presented by Carhartt, Toyota Bonus Bucks Bassmaster Team Championship and the ultimate celebration of competitive fishing, the GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by Diet Mountain Dew and GoPro.
It’s that Time!
This has been a special year for the Howell family with the Bassmaster Classic win and all the great opportunities it’s provided. It has really given us a greater platform to tell others about Kings Home and all of the teenagers, kids and women with children that they serve. These are all people that have been abandoned, abused or neglected in the past and now they have been given HOPE at Kings Home. As you know, we have been blessed to represent them and help them raise funds by giving away my Triton/Mercury package 3 years in a row now! We have raised over $320,000 with the past three boats! Many of you were part of that blessing and we all appreciated it tremendously.
November 15th we will have our annual kids fishing event called Kampfire for the King at the Kings Home campus in Chelsea. This event is a big free pre-holiday outdoor event for kids and families. We will have over 10 Bassmaster high school fishing teams and several Bassmaster college teams on hand to help the kids catch fish to win prizes. Lots of these kids from the homes have never been fishing or caught their first fish, so we are excited to see the smiles that catching a fish can bring! The free fishing competition is open to everyone from 5-15 yrs old. The event starts at 9:00am with a “5K run against domestic violence” then the fishing begins at 10am-2pm. We will be giving the prizes to the winners on stage immediately following, and the event will end with the live streamed drawing to win my boat around 2:15-2:30.
This year, my Triton 21TRX is a big part of B.A.S.S. fishing history since it was the Bassmaster Classic winning “Good luck” boat!! It will be sad to see her leave my home in two weeks when we give her away November 15th at the “Kampfire for the King” event, but if she helps the kids at Kings Home by raising a new record amount of money, it will be worth it!
Please follow the link and go to Kingshome.com to donate today. Every $100 donation gets you a ticket in the drawing on November 15th. There is no limit on the amount of ticket donations you can buy. You don’t have to be present to win and you can watch the drawing live streamed on kingshome.com at 2:15pm central Nov.15th. and if I draw your name, I will be calling you from the stage! Good luck to all of you and thanks again for investing in the lives of so many in need at Kings Home!