Mercer Facts of Fishing-FYI Episode 4

Got to get this one in for Groundhog Day.
I did get a good chuckle out of the last shot at PETA.

Jimmy Houston has a blog (and other bass blog news)

Jimmy Houston's Outdoor Blogspot I actually discovered his blog a couple of days ago when I was updating the Bass Pro's websites blogroll. He started the blog in July and hasn't written a whole lot, but what's there is worth a look.

Some other blogs I have discovered of late:

Sondra Rankin Sondra is a Co-Angler on the FLW Tour that has made quite a name for herself in the fishing world. I haven't yet made my way through her blogs, I suspect I've already read some of these from the blogging she did on MySpace.

Ninja Diary is the blog of Elite Series Pro Kota Kiriyama. I haven't really looked through Kota's blog but it looks like he has been posting frequently since he started the blog last June. He also has a blog in Japanese.

Ken's Blog- Ken is Ken Cook who can rightfully be considered one of the pioneers of Professional Bass Fishing. Ken has after last season retired from Professional Bass Fishing and so I don't know how much bass blogging he will do in the future. He has some excellent blogs about his thoughts on winding up his career last year.

Central Ohio Fishing by Team Mirketti is a blog I learned about just today thanks to a comment he left here at Bass Pundit. This bass blogger who just started fishing tournaments in 2009 dreams of becoming a Professional Bass Fisherman much like Hojin of Rattletrap Ramblings and Minnesocold bass blogger Josh Douglas who are much farther along the path in accomplishing their dream.

No More Secrets

I think it fair to say that it is no secret that with GPS guided lake mapping and GPS guiding lake mapping software that there are now no more secrets in the lakes that are covered by this technology. Just a few years ago lake maps were hit and miss and even the good one's would leave things out in a good structure lake. Those days are over! This may not be news to many, but the truth hit me this week when I ordered and received a Lakemaster paper map of East/West Sylvia lake in Wright County Minnesota.

I do not have a GPS that takes any of the lake mapping chips, therefore I have never bought lake mapping software and thus seen firsthand really how good the mapping now days really is. Last week I happened to go on the Lakemaster website and I discovered they had a paper map for East/West Sylvia; My family had a cabin on the lake and I was fortunate to discover some sunken humps and saddles that were not on any maps at that time. When I saw Lakemaster had the Sylvia paper map I decided to buy it so I could see my hidden gems and discover what I had missed. Well when I got the map on Saturday, I was not disappointed. It was very interesting to see the exact layout of things and yes there were obviously several good fishing locations that somehow had excaped my detection. The sad thing is, now I live a pretty good distance from Sylvia and I really don't know if I'll ever fish there again.

Now Reading...

After 5 plus years of Blogging from the seat of my pants, I am now going to put in some effort to actually learn about how the blogging craft is properly done. I wish I would have read a book like this before I started in 2004, because I have made some mistakes along the way and still don't really know a whole lot if anything about the more advanced elements of blogging and blog promotion. The book I'm reading now, Google Blogger for Dummies, wasn't printed until 2009, so it wasn't around when I first started blogging. I also will be reading The Rational Guide to Google Blogger which has a copyright date from 2006, which I hope puts the book under the perview of old blogger templates like I use for this blog.

Update: I am still at the beginning of the book, but I have learned some things even out of the basic stuff.

Mercer Facts of Fishing-FYI Episode 3

Have to agree with Mercer on his FLW Fantasy Bass Fishing take. As for the part about saving the sport of fishing; it is my understanding that the recession has actually been quite good for fishing and the fishing industry.

For earlier episodes click on the Dave Mercer Label below.

Toad

For some reason the last picture on this Flowing Waters blog posting reminds me of Cyberfish of MT Bucket blog. I think there is a bit of a physical resemblence between the two.

Fear of the Frenzy Popper!?!

I am Facebook Friends with Internet Bass Fishing website mogul Russ "Bassdozer" Comeau. Anyway he likes to use Facebook to promote lures he sells at his ebay store and today he was promoting the vaunted Lobina Lures Rico popper which he sells for $23 (shipping not included).

Seeing this I left a comment saying I would love to see the Rico go head to head with a $3 Berkley Frenzy Popper. (Although now that they have been discontinued I think the going rate for Frenzy Poppers will dramatically increase.) Apparently Russ didn't care for my comment and deleted it.

Does he fear the Frenzy?

Bass Pundit Blogging Note:

I have been doing a lot of work updating my side bar/right column of late. I have re-ordered and labeled some things on my blogrolls and gone through and got things updated getting rid of broken links and adding a few. I just got done updating the Bass Pro Site-ING blogroll, which is my list of links to the websites of fishing pro's. I was disappointed to find not a whole lot of blogs are springing up among the pro's. I had not checked this list in a couple of years and so there were a number of names that got removed. I do wonder if anyone even uses that Bass Pro Site-ING list cause it is a whole lot easier just to type a name of a pro you want to know about into Google and see what comes up. Finding the bass fishing blogs that are out there is not so easy and I think I can claim to have the best website on the internet for finding the bass fishing blogs that are out there.

If you are a bass fishing blogger, even if it isn't your main focus, and not on my blogroll, let me know and I will add you ASAP. You don't have to blogroll me in return, but I do appreciate the folks who do.

Cool Jig Color!

This is a Bass Assault Ambush Series Flipping Jig but I don't know the name of the color. I have seen black and red jigs and spinnerbaits before, but not with a mostly red head or 50/50 red in the skirt.

Move Over Kermit, Here Comes Bass Pro Shops Kermy!

It looks a lot like the Spro Dean Rojas "Kermit" Bronzeye Frog (click on pic to enlarge) but this is the value priced Bass Pro Shops Kermy Frog. Bass Pro is selling it for $4.99, which would be a heck of a value if it's a quality frog. There is only one review up at Bass Pro Shops at the moment. For some reason BPS does not list the weight in the catalog or online.

Another lure that caught my eye in the BPS Spring Angler 2010 Catalog was the Storm Kickin' Stick

This one looks to be another Sebile Magic Swimmer Clone, but unlike the Koppers Livetarget Blueback Herring and the Strike King Sexy Swimmer, the Storm lure goes for under 10 bucks at $9.99. It's 5 inches long and weighs in at 2/3oz. If they carry this thing at Mills Fleet Farm, Mills carries lots of Storm product, than I will certainly be buying one with the gift certificate I got for Christmas

Zoom Bait Company Blog

(Picture- The New Zoom Swimmin' Super Fluke)

I am really liking TBrinksFishing.com blog as he seems to have something good and new every day. Today he blogged about the new Zoom Swimmin Super Fluke and linked up to the Zoom Bait Company website which is a Wordpress Blog similar to Lucky Craft's The Daily Crank and ULTIMATEBASS which are both outstanding bass fishing blogs. I did not know Zoom had a website, let alone know that it was a blog.

So if you are a fan of Zoom baits, now there is a blog for you. Outstanding!

FLW Series East Lake Okeechobee Results

2010 FLW Series East Lake Okeechobee Results...

BassOnline.com blog out of Florida had good Day 1 coverage but nothing is up for Day 2 yet. For that matter FLW doesn't have an article yet either. I wish BassFan would cover these tournaments because I think the level of talent and payouts are "major league."

FLW Outdoors Day 2 Story...

FLW Outdoors Day 3 Story...
So it's Cox, S. Martin, Gags, Tom Mann, and JTodd Tucker but it looks like Debary, Florida’s John Cox is a lock.

State of the Union: Bass Fishing.

Blogger TBrinksFishing.com put together a State of the Bass Fishing Union essay on his blog. It is worth the read, so check it out.

So what does the BP think about the State of the Bass Fishing Union?

I see a difference between the state of bass fishing in a general sense and the state of bass tournament fishing in a particular sense. I think bass fishing in general is in pretty good shape, maybe the best shape it has ever been. To start things off a world record largemouth was just caught and officially certified. Next I think in most places that bass inhabit the populations seem to be thriving and in many of places the fishing has never been better. Then there is the excellent state of bass fishing equipment, which certainly has never been better in terms of quantity and quality. Bass fishing wisdom and knowledge is widely available in all forms of media both old (Books, TV, Magazines, VHS) and new (blogs, Internet forums, websites, DVD's, computer games, podcast/Internet radio, social networking sites, etc.) Indeed the general state of bass fishing is very good.

The state of tournament bass fishing, however, is not nearly as positive and this is true for the Professional Bass Angler, aspiring Pro and semi-professional bass anglers and the weekend warrior clubbers. The problems are well known; Money and Sponsorships are leaving the sport while the costs of participation are increasingly prohibitive at all levels; For this and other reasons participation on the whole is down instead of growing. However, before one gets to down on the whole enterprise there is a silver lining because the current difficulties present an opportunity for those in the tournament industry to re-evaluate, innovate, and build upon the good things that remain.

I think I should acknowledge that even with the set backs there are things about tournament bass fishing that remain positive such as that thanks to the Internet ESPN/BASS and FLW have been and will continue to take steps to make Professional Bass Fishing more fan friendly. Many if not all of the things that I mentioned earlier as being positives for bass fishing in general also apply to tournament bass fishing. As Tyler Brinks mentioned in his essay on this subject:

One of the most positive things I have seen in fishing has to do with the future of our sport. The youth and college programs in bass fishing have never been better. Youth clubs are becoming hugely popular and are even being seen at the high school level. College fishing is exploding and is training our young anglers for a long future in the sport.

And last but not least tournament bass fishing is still fun so if you are inclined to this kind of thing it is worth the price we have to pay, whatever that may be.

Largemouth Bass World Record Certificate

Manabu Kurita has got pictures of a couple of certificates at his blog...

College Bass Fishing Top 25 Rankings

Ok I am stealing this from TBrinksFishing.com blog and he stole it from the ESPN 2010 College Bass Blog entry by Tommy Edwards. It looks like ESPN has a host of people contributing to this College Bass Blog (scroll down for blogs) for them.

Here are the Rankings: (No clue how they arrived at their conclusions)
1 North Carolina State
2 North Texas
3 Northwestern State
4 Virginia Tech
5 Eastern Kentucky
6 Florida
7 Auburn
8 Stephen F. Austin
9 Texas A&M
10 Murray state
11 Alabama
12 Arkansas
13 Indiana
14 San Jose State
15 Arizona State
16 Louisiana - Lafayette
17 Oklahoma
18 LSU - Shreveport
19 UCF
20 Arkansas - Little Rock
21 Sacramento State
22 Texas State
23 Tarleton State
24 North Alabama
25 Faulkner

I think it's a travesty the Iowa State Hawkeye's didn't make it.

College bass fishing has come on really strong in the past couple of years, but between FLW and ESPN/BASS and whoever else is involved, the picture is kind of muddled about how exactly things are sanctioned and who all is participating. Hopefully we will see some Minnesocold Teams in the Future.

Update: I've just noticed a list of participating schools. The U of M and St. Cloud State appear to be the only MN schools. Lots of Cheesehead schools though.

Another Minnesocold Bass Fishing Blog: Team Patience

Team Patience adds yet another blog the "The BassNblog Capitol of the World.". This blog is off to a slow start with only 3 posts since it's debut in August of 2009. Hopefully they will get in gear and start posting some more stuff. I am going to leave a comment encouraging them to keep with it and add more content; I recommend for Bass Pundit readers to do the same. Also it is a Blogger blog, so don't forget to "Follow" that blog.

2010 FLW Fantasy Fishing Open For Registration

FLW FantasyFishing.com is now open for business and the details of the game for 2010 are now out in full.

For familiarities sake I wish they would have kept the website layout the same, but honestly I can't say that I think the change of layout is worse than what was there last year. Heck it might be an improvement.

Scoring:
I think I like the new scoring system a whole lot better than what they did during the big money years. The emphasis is still all about picking anglers that make the Top 10 but now instead of those fluky exacta's (ie, picking a top 10 angler in his specific place of finish), you are instead heavily rewarded now for how high of a finish your selected anglers end up with. Now the game for all practical purposes is about picking multiple anglers that finish high in the Top 10, which means the winners will be the people with the best rosters, instead of the luckiest rosters due to exacta's.

Prizes:
This year things go back to the Fantasy Bass Fishing norm where only the very best of the best rosters win prizes. For both regular tournaments and the end of the year they are only going down a total of 15 places. I think if something is a bit of a disappointment to me this would be it. I would prefer they cut $35,000 out of the Top 2 end of the year prizes and spread the love out to the top 50 finishers of each tournament and in the end of the year. I think not spreading the love is a mistake and I suspect the number of people who play next year is going to be down significantly because of it.

Here are the Prizes:
FLW Tour Events - 6 Events
1st $5,000
2nd $500
3rd $100
4th-10th $50
11th-15th $25

Cumulative End of Season Prizes
1st $50,000
2nd $25,000
3rd A $5,000 Cabela’s gift card plus a 5-day guided fishing trip for two to Lake El Salto, Mexico $12,000
4th A BRP Can-Am Outlander 400 All-Terrain Vehicle. $9,699
5th $5,000
6th-10th $1,000
11th-15th $500

Blogging Note: Not to complain or anything, but one of the downsides of a big blogroll is blogroll upkeep. Something I have not done much of especially on the Blogroll-O-FishNblog. I am in that process now and man did I have a lot of junk on there. I was also bummed to discover Bass Pundit is not blogrolled at the new Fishing Jones blog. Only 38 more blogs for me to check, Hooray!

The 2nd Favre Interception

I in no way shape or form blame Brett Farve for the NFC Championship loss due to that costly interception at the end of the game. We had barely made it into field goal range on the drive and when we got that costly 12 men in the huddle penalty we were effectively taken out of realistic field goal range. Don't forget we had a long field goal blocked for a touchdown earlier this season. Had we not gotten a penalty for the 12 men, we would have gotten a delay of game penalty for calling consecutive time outs. I think Chilly tried to get a little too cute playing head games with the Saints defence and ended up outsmarting himself and costing the team. So what is Favre to do because he really needs about 10 more yards to put us in field goal range. Farve is under the gun at that point and needs to make a play. Favre's best option when no one on that side of the field broke open was to pull it down and run but all season in similar situations circumstances Favre has passed the ball, sometimes taking a penalty for being beyond the line of scrimmage. Had the pass been incomplete the Vikes would have to have gone for it on 4th and 15 where the odds of conversion are not in our favor. The penalty screwed us far more than Favre's bad throw.

As far as I'm concerned Favre nearly won us the game and it was screw ups on Chilly's part that were the real culprit at the end. Chilly went conservative when we really needed to tack on 10 to 20 more yards; Chilly's handling of the time out was a disaster.

Update: I haven't listened to talk radio all day but the Star Trib only mentions the interception, not the impending 55+ yard field goal or 4th and 15. After the penalty the chances of the Vikings winning in regulation were very low.

Game Over Vikings Lose: Favre Retirement Speculation Begins.

More than disappointed over the loss, I am disappointed in how the Vikes played. Win or lose I wanted to see the Vikings play well. It's pretty clear our Offensive mistakes cost the game, but the Special Teams contributed to the loss and the Defence gave up touchdowns instead of fieldgoals. However, I can't complain to much about the Defence because they played a darn good game and were hurt by Special Teams and the Harvin fumble. After having watched the match up, I think if this game was played in the Metrodome it most likely would have been a Vikings blow out. Today we showed how you can lose while being the superior team.

Favre Speculation: I really hope Favre is in his right mind and doesn't go out when it's pretty obvious he is capable of taking this team on a Superbowl run. But then again you never know with Favre, if I have my history right he quit on the Packers after losing an NFC title game with his last pass then also being an interception.

Vikings vs. Dem Saints Game Day (My take)

I just am trying to enjoy the fact that my Vikes have made it to an NFC Championship game again. The last 2 NFC Championship games were heavily dispiriting with losses in 1999 (3 point overtime loss of a game we should have won) and 2001 (41-0 blowout) being just about equally brutal to take. As I have said before I would be a lot more positive on the teams chances if the game were here in Minnesocold. At the same time I am not super pessimistic either, I don't think it is a fluke that we have made it this far. If Favre and Peterson have good games than there is an excellent chance my Vikings can pull this one out. If the offence faulters than we probably have little chance because I think the Saints score at least 17 points.

I will not be liveblogging as that the last time I did it, the Vikes played terrible until I gave up and just watched the game.

Anyway, win or lose it's been a pretty great season up until this point.

Skoal Vikings!!!

Note on Jets v Colts: Either way I want the NFC Team to win the Superbowl this year. I think the Jets are probably weaker vs. the Vikings due to our run defence and the Colts are probably the weaker match up vs. the Saints because I think the Saints will have an easier time putting up points against the Colts. In all scenario's I like the NFC chances.