FishwithJD

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Who says you can’t catch largemouth in crappy weather?

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Another healthy Clear Lake largemouth for the Big Man


So the calendar says spring, but here in California at least, it’s like the dead of winter…cold, rainy and windy. It’s wacky weather like this — sunny and 70 degrees one day, then pouring the next — that can make bass fishing tough. Still, our pal Big Fred Contaoi has been sending us some pix of big bass from Clear Lake lately, so he’s obviously figured something out. In fact, he finished 4th in a big tourney there last week…and the weather was super funky then, too.

But, this is all a long preamble to say that the spawn’s not far off…so it’s time to target pre-spawn bass. Learn how HERE

Huge 109-pound blue catfish is a pending Virginia state record

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Time to bust out the hot oil and have a good ol’ fashioned fish fry! Tony Milam just caught a what soon should be recognized as the Virginia state record, 109-pound blue catfish in Buggs Island Lake.

The 53-inch beast featured a 41-inch girth was hooked near the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers and tops the current state record blue by a whopping 17 pounds. No word on what Milam caught the fish on but something like a live German Sheppard or a side of beef wouldn’t be out of the question!

Official state certification is estimated to be completed sometime next week.

IGFA: 26-lb. landlocked Atlantic Salmon’s a new World Record

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If landlocked sockeye got this big, you'd never land one!


On March 14, the International Game Fish Association announced that that the 26-pound, 12-ounce landlocked Atlantic Salmon caught last fall by Tom Aufiero of Lafayette, IN in Michigan’s Torch Lake catch is the new IGFA All-Tackle world record for the species.

Aufiero caught the fish on a small shrimp-patterned fly fished on 6-pound tippet with guide guide, Matt Supinski, owner of the Gray Drake Lodge.

For more details, click HERE

Pyramid Lake produces pending line class world record cutthroat trout

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Robin's gotta get get some bonus points for the hat!


The fact that you can be just one cast away from glory on any given day is one of the things that makes fishing so damn cool. Just ask Robin J. Wood Sr. of Modesto, CA, who was fishing Pyramid Lake, Nevada on February 5, 2011 when he hooked into this beast of a lahontan cutthroat trout…which at 17 pounds, 4 ounces, is a pending IGFA 20-pound test line class world record.

The huge cutty bit a Blue Fox spoon and took 15 minutes to land…which is saying something, considering these fish aren’t the world’s greatest scrappers. Assuming all the paperwork goes through okay, Wood’s fish will easily best the current IGFA 20-pound record of 11 pounds, 6 ounces.

Talk about kicking off the career in style…His first steelhead: A 25-pounder!

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Quit while you're ahead, brother! It's gonna be tough to top this one!


Would you believe that this 25.9-pound, 40 1/4x 26-inch steelhead was the first one ever for Mick here? He caught the jumbo hatchery beast while side-drifting Pautzke’s cured eggs in Northwestern Washington with our pal guide Bill “Swanny” Swann.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is it’s probably time for Mick to take up golf…table tennis…antiquing…cubist painting…French cooking…whatever. Because, when you start your steelhead fishing career off with a fish like that, there’s really nowhere to go but down…