Retired Southern Illinois fishing guide Jay Zapp put a whacking on the big fish using the Amistad Tackle Head Banger and a Flick Shake worm. He won't let me reveal the location of the waterbody, but it was on a small public lake in the U.S. well south of the Mason Dixon line. Check out the incredible stats from the trip over a two week period; 100 hours of fishing and a total of 110 bass - six over ten pounds - six over nine pounds - six over eight pounds - eleven over seven pounds - seventeen over five pounds.

Jay said they tried a variety of other baits, but the Head Banger with a junebug 5.8 Flick Shake was the best bait and caught all of the big fish. The above pictures are of a few of the biggest fish. Jay said the fish were like footballs, having tremendous girth for their length. Jay tells me he has caught 27 different species of fish using the wacky jighead technique including quite a few species of saltwater fish. For some of Jay's tips on the wacky jighead technique, including a knot he says is critical, check out our In-Depth Angling article on the wacky jighead technique. You'll find it as an October 2009 entry in our blog. Click on the entry and the interactive article will open up.

ShareLunker 379 caught by Robert Robles of Del Rio, TX was released back into Lake Amistad on April 16th. The 13.5 pound fish was turned into the Texas Parks and Wildlife Share Lunker Program for breeding purposes, but genetic tests found it was not a pure Florida strain bass. Only pure Florida strain bass are used in the breeding program. The fish was caught on an 1 oz. Pearl Ayu Amistad Tackle Hawg-N flutter spoon. Photo by Larry D. Hodge of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Jerking a suspending stickbait around is one of my favorite techniques from pre-spawn through post-spawn. The bait often comes to an abrupt stop on a jerk, or your line jumps on a pause as a fish kills it. Nothing quite like it!

Here is a photo of one of many I caught last Friday fishing post-spawn fish on a power cooling reservoir. This is a custom painted "ghost" Amistad Sunfish pattern. It is transparent paint lightly sprayed on a clear blank. Ghost patterns are great on clear days, when you want a more subtle color pattern. As you can see from the photo there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but early in the day under lower light conditions we had been catching them on a gaudy Table Rock Shad pattern.  They wouldn't touch this in the afternoon. The fish on this reservoir are still shallow in the backs of pockets not to far from where they spawned. Spawning bluegill are an easy meal for hungry bass this time of year and a bluegill colored bait is the way to go.

For our customers who purchased our crankbait painting DVD email me steve@amistadtackle.com and I'll send you the color recipe for this cool bluegill pattern. Jerkbait fishing is huge in the Ozarks, especially on Table Rock and Lake of the Ozarks. For some great information on spring jerkbait fishing check this podcast out at the Ozark Anglers website. The information presented in the podcast will take you "to school" on jerkbait fishing!

Here is a beautiful 6.39 pound smallmouth caught by Aaron Walters on Kentucky Lake. That's a big brownie!

I always had a lot of tackle, pliers etc. bumping around in the bottom of the boat and wanted a cheap way to get it all out of the way.  Rather than buy the relatively expensive tackle organizers (that would have been too easy) I put on the thinking cap and came up with a few items that, so far, have worked really well.

The first is a magnetic tool organizer from Harbour Freight.  Anything make of steel will stick to it like glue.  If it isn't magnetic (like a Dip-n-Dye container) take a steel washer and glue it to the item with some clear Liquid Nails.  The washer will stick to the magnet.  I think the magnetic strip was $3.98 with an on-line Harbour Freight coupon.  The bar itself is powder coated, so it won't rust.

The second item is vinyl dry wall corner bead.  It is perforated so the dry wall mud sticks to it.  Cut it to length, stick it to the underside of storage containers with Liquid Nails and hang your baits by the hook(s). Ten feet was $1.98 at Home Depot.  I have used used both items in reasonably rough water and for the most part things stay where they are supposed to.  Give these ideas a try, I think you'll like them.

Just in time for spring fishing, we have our popular Head Banger wacky jighead back in stock.  See our articles section for an info sheet on this great little finesse jighead and start banging some heads with the Head Banger!

Robert Robles of Del Rio, Texas caught Toyota ShareLunker 479, a 13.5 pound bass from Lake Amistad on Sunday. The fish was caught on a pearl ayu 1 ounce Amistad Tackle Hawg-N flutter spoon. Robert said “I wouldn’t have caught it if it wasn’t for the good hook that comes on the spoon.”

Robert was fishing with his nephew Clint Robertson in a three-fish tournament. With the 13 pounder they also weighed an eight pounder for a three fish stringer weighing 26.24 pounds and second place. Pictured is Robert with the 13.5 pounder, Clint with the eight pounder he caught on a plain nickel Hawg-N flutter spoon, and their three fish tournament stringer. Congratulations guys on an awesome day!!!!

We are currently out of the Head Banger wacky jighead. We are expecting more in about two weeks. We’ll be banging our head until then for running out!

We now have our Tilapia color available in our 3/4 and 1 ounce Hawg-N Flutter Spoon for those of you heading to South Texas or Mexico.

I just watched this weeks Bass Pros on the Versus Network and Kevin Vandam had an interesting segment on swimbaits (soft and hard). A couple of points on swimbaits I picked up:

1) when using soft swimbaits he talked about the smaller size swimbaits (4-4.5 inch) catching fish anywhere in the country

2) moving the lead forward on a swimbait hook makes the bait run deeper and moving it back makes the bait run higher in the water column

3) he used a hook with a screwlock. He pinches the weight down where he wants it for the conditions, as the weight was able to be moved on the hook shank.

The hook he was using looked a lot like ours, but it was probably one produced by Strike King. I noticed Wal Mart now carrys swimbait hooks. Everybody has one. We were one of the first companies to market a weighted swimbait hook. We started selling them on Ebay, which is how Amistad Tackle got started. They still work great and we think the Mustad wide gap hook and our oversized heavy gauge stainless steel screwlock is still the best design out there.

KVD has a great website if you haven’t already been there.

We received some positive feedback on the tackle making web site Tackle Underground from customers who purchased our crankbait painting DVD. When we put together the DVD we geared it towards the beginning painter who works in his garage or basement and wanted to learn some simple and inexpensive techniques for painting, foiling and clear coating their crankbaits. We kept it to “the basics” as this is in itself is a lot to master for the beginner. If you want to paint some baits this winter and want a visual reference that will keep you from making lots of frustrating mistakes (like we did!) this DVD is for you.

Check out what others who purchased the DVD are saying:

We hope to offer an “advanced crankbait painting” DVD in the near future. This will cover advanced topics like using stencils, alternative clearcoats, use of pearl pigments, air pressure adjustments and much more.

There are two good articles on 7-24 Outdoors on squarebill crankbaits. I don’t agree with everything in the articles, but there is some excellent information on cranking these super fish catchers. When the fish are up shallow you need to have this style crankbait tied on. Check out our selection of Mimic 2.0 and 3.0 squarebills. We will also have a “no rattles” Amistad Tackle custom painted plastic squarebill coming out soon.

The Amistad Tackle 1 ounce Hawg-N flutter spoon will be pictured in an article by Mark Hicks on flutter spoons in North American Fisherman magazine. Speaking of the flutter spoon, it was a big factor in JT Kenney’s advancement to the finals of this years Ultimate Match Fishing. JT was snapping it up off the bottom and catching some good ones. David Dudley beat him, but if you watch the show you’ll see Dudley using one of Amistad’s favorite deep diving crankbaits, the 3/4 ounce Luhr Jensen Hotlips Express as well as a heavy shakey head with a big straight tailed worm to cover Kentucky Lakes famous ledges. All three of these baits are excellent choices any time the fish are on structure spots and are used by professional fisherman because they are super efficient tools for covering deep water. Better get you some!!!

Looking for a project to help fend off cabin fever? Buy some peg board and hangers for organizing your soft plastics. I had everything stuffed in baggies and boxes and really didn’t know what I had anymore. The peg board system really works well. You can also hang your extra hard baits.

Crawfish imitating jigs are one of my favorite winter fishing baits. I usually spend some time around the new year updating my jig box in anticipation of some winter and early spring fishing. The fish really get on this bait in cold water. Will Chiao shows off a beautiful 7.25 pounder he caught on a black neon colored jig while doing some winter fishing.