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thanks for lettin me try out the bait @griffin.geeslin

Met a buddy after work at a local hole and got this 7.1# on the 7” bucca bullgill. Saw tons of big gills swimming around the shallows and sure enough it got smashed

As someone with an opinion largely against the stocking off fish. I would rather see the management of lakes as ecosystems, focused on creating/preserving natural systems. Of course that isn't possible in man-made reservoirs. Personally I would rather catch a fish born in, and grown in nature than some fish created in a lab. The idea that the fish I am catching are created by man, often ignoring the natural sucession/state of ecosystems takes away from the connection to nature that I find myself fishing for. Big fish are cool, but I wouldn't feel as accomplished with a PB from a Sharelunker/stocked lake as I would from a lake with no anthropogenic input. Just my 0.2 of hippie nonsense

Caught on a Rago rat in bass pattern. Does this still count as a swimbait fish?

I’m a simple man. I see a 15lb bass I hit like. That’s my opinion.

I mean it’s been around since 1986, 37 years running if fish were going to only feed a certain way from genetics you would already be seeing this take effect and probably more mortality or smaller if fish are only feeding a certain way. i think genetics might play a role into how fish stage throughout the year but not necessarily but they eat. A hungry fish is a hungry fish and isn’t going to pass up a big gill if it’s parent genetics preferred Shad. I mean I love steak but I didn’t get fat just eating steak. Rhode Island use to have a warm water hatchery and there were some monsters in there. Pike as well. When it closed down they all got dispersed. They never disclosed what ponds like they do with trout. But that was also 20 plus years ago. i would love to see a share lunker program in New England (I think some other NE states do warm water hatcheries as I’ve seen one I believe in New Hampshire but again years ago)

Liking the Tk so far but can’t keep the pickerel off. These are a few solid ones from the past outings

Finally made it back on the site since 2017 been mostly fly fishing and decided to get back on the swimbait gig to catch my PB. Went out with a BBZ 1 and started chucking it from the bank worked my way through the brush and all to a tree laying in the water casted out let it sink and started a moderate retrieve just as I hit the tree wham I got hit and landed this. Definetly not my PB but first swimbait fish ever. No scale so roughly if say 3-4lbs will keep at it. Looking to expand my bait choices for NH I have had no luck on my hudd mostly hard baits have been my go to any recommendations would be helpful

Was in the area and decided to fish the body of water the Delaware state record largemouth was caught out of (wagamons pond in Milton). I started at the dam above the spillway casting into the wind and lost an 8” magdraft to a pickerel and decided I’d had enough of the swimbait for the day. The spillway at wagamons pond dumps water into the upper broadkill river which is a brackish tidal fishery (roughly 9 miles from the Delaware bay). I caught abt 15 little largemouth blitzing micro bait on a lucky craft pointer sp and as I was abt to leave I watched someone across the river catch a 6lb largemouth on a worm and bobber and said “what the hell why not throw the sly guy around”. I moved over to the other side of the river and saw 20+ bluegill beds scattered around a drainage pipe and knew I had a shot at a big largemouth. These beds happened to be abt 50 yards from a popular Mexican restaurant so there were plenty of people walking around and even more people fishing the spillway. First cast out by the drop off I get 2 chops in with the 6.2” sly guy gill before the water erupted around my bait. At first I thought I’d hooked the state record but after a drag stripping 20 yard run I got her to the bank and realized what I’d caught. And the people fishing next to me offered to take a picture of my catch. I had no idea striper of this size traveled this far upriver and after getting a weight and length on her I realized that this was my biggest striper period. I’ve been chasing a striper of this size all my life in the canal by my house in Lewes and I think it’s pretty funny that I finally land her 9 miles upriver in trophy largemouth territory. Sorry for the long write up but this fish means more to me than a 6lb largie ever could. 11.2lbs 29”

Yes they do… pretty much a constant game of keep away in the neighborhood ponds! rain break: caught a tree pounder on it before the storms rolled in

A good friend of mine, one of the premier guides on Lake Fork back in the heyday, caught a 15+ from a small, trophy bass managed pay-to-play lake; the equivalent of a high-fence game ranch. I asked him if he'd have a better sense of accomplishment if he'd caught it out of Lake Fork - his reply was "dude, I caught a 15lb bass! I don't care where it came from!!" Trophy bass are hard to catch - period. So why not grow more of them!

The OP's concerns about saturating the gene pool are unrealistic. Here's an excerpt from the 2021 Fisheries Management report for Lake Fork prepared by TPWD. Studying the entire report is highly recommended if you really want to understand the dynamics of the fishery, but to address the "gene pool" issue the stocking history and genetics analysis should answer that. Even though the lake has been stocked with Florida strain bass for decades, the gene pool is dominated by first and second generation hybrids of Fla and northern LMB. I believe there is another report that lists the number of recent SL bass caught that have the genetics of previous SL's and I recall that percentage to be extremely low as well. The reports of other Texas lakes such as the hot one, OH Ivie, show similar results.

I’ve been on the pursuit for a lunker for some time now just like every one of you crazy’s. That’s what really made me gravitate to large swimbaits here the past few months. Going in to this season, my personal best was 7lb 6oz while losing some bigger bass along the way. Since I started throwing swimbaits, I’ve now topped that weight twice, and shattered my previous PB this past weekend. This old heifer absolutely cranked my Biggs Denali and weighed in at 9lb 3oz! When we boated her, I thought no doubt she was a 10+. Just goes to show how big and special these fish really are. The feeling of being so close, but yet so far will really fuel my quest now. I had 3 others that were of the same caliber swipe at it, just didn’t get a hook in’em!

Go get em https://www.workingclasszero.store/product/battles-shad-6-0-silver

There are some available now!

Got two silver before they sold out. Blue is still available though.

I honestly would love california to do a program like this too. We have the environment to grow a world record. In fact we had the biggest ever recorded. I'll worry about how dumb they are after they're in my waters

It’s in Flo Rida! I’ll try to keep it away from the gators

Bought this bait as I was walking through the BPS aisles after a work event. They only had one and were just getting it put out. Some people here may not like it, but it has flat out got bit the last few days. Fish posted went 6.8.

I used grenade weights, but my suspends as well. It’s amazing, I crank it down to desired depth, reel it up to a piece of structure like a weed clump or log, pause it and it looks straight at the structure and hangs there. If it looks away from the structure when I pause it, 1 slight twitch and it looks at the structure. In open water and over grass, I dead walk it like a DRT Klash.

Have your post all written up and upload your pics. You then press the submit button. You can either wait, eventually the loading bar will fill up (takes a while) and your post will go through. Or you can press submit, then wait 30 seconds and click on the SU homepage logo. If you click "Refresh", it will double post your posting. Or if you click submit again, I've noticed this also double posts sometimes. This is something that I've found to work. If anyone has any other method that has worked for them, post below. I've used this method on Brave, Chrome and Edge browsers.

Gators do love wake baits!

When it comes to rat fishing there’s really no wrong way to fish them… sometime you need fish it slow other time fast then there’s those day where you will have walk them but for sure alway reel all the way back most of my biggest bites have come right at the boat

Sheesh. Absolute unit of a fish.

Good one bro, great write up

…..so your thesis here…..is that you have a preference for lakes with no big fish, instead of lakes with lots of big fish?

Solid one brother. Nice!

LureWorks SB coat is what you want. If you are painting a battles shad make sure to give it a gentle wipe down with some paint thinner first to help with adhesion. It takes some getting used to but don’t be afraid to use reducer to help with ease of spraying.

Congratulations, that’s a beauty of a striper. No apologies needed for the write up. Be proud of your catch and share your story, it was a good read and deserves to be told.