Tournament News Powered By Lake Drive Marine
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By Alan McGuckin
Kevin VanDam
Trophy presentations are certainly nothing new to Kevin VanDam. But when Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris asked “KVD” to join him in victory lane to present the winner’s trophy recently at NASCAR’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the longtime Toyota angler was a bit astonished.
Longshot driver Christopher Buescher won the race, and not only did VanDam help with the trophy presentation, but he may very well have won the award for the guy who had the most fun at the iconic half-mile track on the Tennessee-Virginia border.
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By Louie Stout
The St. Joseph River bass population remains stable and the future looks pretty good, says Elkhart/South Bend Aquatic Biologist Dar Deegan.
In fact, he noted, the river experienced a really good bass spawn – both largemouth and smallmouth - last year.
“Maybe the best I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Deegan said. “We also had a good one in 2018, despite the record flood we had in late winter that year.”
The introductions of non-native gizzard shad and explosion in the bluegill population have provided plenty of forage and zebra mussels have cleared the river allowing for plant growth.
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Seaguar Report
Free Rig
American bass anglers owe a lot to their Japanese counterparts. Some of the most significant innovations created in Japan have entered the tackle boxes of North American anglers, with drop-shotting and Neko rigging as good examples.
So what's next? Signs are pointing to the "free rig" as the next big thing in bass fishing and some anglers are already finding success with it stateside.
One such angler is Bassmaster Elite Series pro Taku Ito, a pro that has quickly gained a large fan following for his infectious personality and unique angling methods. Ito has also found plenty of success on the water with seven Top 10 finishes, including a win on the St. Lawrence River, New York, in less than three full seasons on the Elite Series.
The Free Rig and How to Use It
The free rig is a hybrid rig that shares some aspects of the ultra-popular Texas and Carolina rigs. Using a weight with a hole at the top, anglers thread their line through the hole, tie their hook, and then rig their soft plastic bait. As the rig is cast out, the weight falls first and the soft plastic falls slowly behind it in a free-flowing and unpredictable way. Ito says this falling action is what makes it so deadly.
"The free rig is similar to the Texas-Rig, but not the same," says Ito. "The Texas-Rig is much better for heavy cover, but the free rig is the best for suspended fish. It started to get popular in Japan around five years ago on Lake Biwa, which has a lot of grass like Lake Guntersville in Alabama. The bass suspended over the grass and were hard to catch until they started to use the free rig."