For those who don’t know me let me tell you one thing.  My favorite type of fishing is topwater lures and the reason why is seeing those vicious bites and seeing and hearing your lure getting slammed.  No matter what time a year it is I will always have a buzz bait tied on to one of my poles as it is one of my favorite techniques.  After watching the Omega Tackle Jig fishing video, which included a section about the Alpha Shad,  I decided to purchase several Alpha Shad Buzz Baits from Omega Custom Tackle. Omega’s attention to detail makes these worth every penny. So, what makes these so special? >>> read more

One thing that I have learned since moving here to the Chicago area a few short months ago is that Northern Smallmouth are much like their Southern Largemouth cousins, in that they LOVE baits that stand up off of the lake floor. One of my all time favorite baits for Pitching and Dragging for Bass is The "Shaky Foot" by OMEGA Custom Tackle. I have fished this bait all over the country for Largemouth, Smallmouth, as well as Spotted Bass and they just can't seem to help themselves when The "Shaky Foot" is in the area. Da' Foot as it is nicknamed has gained a huge following in recent years due to it's ability to produce fish even under the toughest of conditions.

Event: Fort Gibson - June 2012
My day started off with a bang! We had a strong front come in the night before that brought heavy rain and morning temps in the low 50's. I was fishing main lake points with nice chunk rocks along with brush piles. All the fish came off those points using an OMEGA watermelon red structure jig.

Chad Deaver of Jefferson City Mo. and partner took 1st place weighing in a five bass limit for 24.46 lbs in the Tyler Huffman Benefit Tournament at Lake of the Ozarks Sunday May 20 and the weekend before taking 1st with a 18.56 lbs in the 20th Annual Roofersmart Tournament. Everything in the last two weekends, Chad reported catching both winning stringers on a 3/4 and 1oz Derek Remitz Football Jig and a 3/8 oz Shakey Foot.

Omega Custom Tackle Pro, Casey Martin of New Market, Ala., who won the BFL over the weekend, is in second place with 27-9. Martin won the BFL with 24 pounds. Today he weighed in 3 pounds, 9 ounces heavier than in the BFL and he’s in second place.

“I had one good deep spot that I had planned to save until Saturday,” Martin said. “I had planned on fishing shallow and just junking it up to about 20 pounds to just survive. At about 10:30 all was going according to plan. I had about 17 or 18 pounds fishing shallow and that’s when I ran across Justin Lucas who told me JT (Kenney) had a monster bag. So I completely scrapped the shallow stuff, went to the deep spot and caught fish after fish for 20 minutes straight until I culled everything I had. It was just unreal.” >>> read more

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. – Casey Martin of New Market, Ala., weighed a five-bass limit totaling 24 pounds even Saturday to win the Walmart Bass Fishing League Choo Choo Division event on Lake Guntersville. For his victory, Martin earned $3,963 plus a $2,000 bonus from Ranger and a $1,000 bonus from Evinrude. “The lake is fishing tough for Guntersville standards,” said Martin, who said he is looking forward to the EverStart Series event on Guntersville that starts on Wednesday. “You only needed 13-plus pounds to get a check in this tournament, whereas in the past it would have taken at least 16 pounds. I was lucky that I was able to get a couple of nice bites early, and that is really what is going to be key at the EverStart this week — getting early bites. This win puts a lot of pressure on me. A lot of guys are watching me now. But it was nice to get the win. >>> read more

Derek Remitz made a strong showing at the 2012 Elite Series TroKar Quest on Bull Shoals Lake. He was Saturday's Carhartt Big Bass holder with a kicker that weighed five pounds, nine ounces. That carried him into the final 12 for Sunday's shootout. He ended up ninth with 60.13 ounces and nice paycheck for the event. After 3 events in the 2012 Bassmaster Elite Series, Remitz sits 14th in Angler of the Year Standings. The next event on the schedule is the Douglass Lake Challenge on Douglass Lake in Dandridge, TN. May 3 - 6, 2012.
Continue on for more images...>>>

The Tennessee River is home to some of the greatest bass fishing not only in the state of Alabama but in the entire country. Nestled right in the middle of the river, just up the road from Florence, is a small 18-mile reservoir known as Wilson Lake. Often overlooked by outsiders looking in, this small body of water offers up big bass, and that's no secret to the locals.

Though the larger events that bring such notoriety to its fellow Tennessee River waterways are a little too much for its surface area, there's no doubt the same giant smallmouths and largemouths that roam the rest of the river dwell in the deep, clear waters of Wilson as well. Huge stringers in recent months have been brought in to win local Wildcat tournaments, and that has the lake swarming with bass boats. >>> read more

It's hard to watch other anglers catch fish around you, especially when you're not catching anything. It's a demoralizing distraction that often leads to shaken confidence. It can quickly become a downward spiral into the depths of angling despair.

Consider last year's Classic on the Louisiana Delta out of New Orleans. Fishing in a small area of Lake Cataouatche, Kevin VanDam was piling big bass into the boat at an alarming rate. Several other anglers in close proximity couldn't help but witness the spectacle. (In fact, there was a indelible image captured by our very own James Overstreet that showed one of VanDam's neighbors staring in awe as KVD lifted a chunky largemouth into his boat.) >>> full story