Day: October 1, 2017

Categories
Swimbait Mayhem

Big Baits Small Reel – Will it work?

Big Baits Small Reel – Will it work?

So, needing a new swimbait reel and having to wait was just killing me. I posed the question, will a regular size reel work for throwing big swimbaits. I asked several high-profile swimbait groups on Facebook and got responses from very high-profile followers to everyday people. I received responses all across the board. I was told it would and wouldn’t, not enough line capacity, gears would get destroyed, drag couldn’t handle the big baits. It was endless the amount of people who said it wouldn’t work.

However, I found several people that swore they would work and nothing would go wrong. I believed they knew something the others didn’t. I also suspect that most of the nay-sayers were just repeating what they had heard from someone else.

I chose the Ardent Pro in 7.3:1 gear ratio and ending up spooling up 17lb Cabela’s Professional Fluorocarbon on the reel. I started this adventure on August 20th 2017. I will keep this post updated to tell all how everything went. If you have any questions or thoughts on the subject, please let me know below.

Check out my video here!

Semper Fish!

Categories
Blog The National Angler

Guadalupe Bass

Guadalupe Bass – Fishing the Guadalupe River

The Guadalupe Bass is another subspecies of species Black Bass. While there is several very popular species more notable know as Largemouth and Smallmouth. The Guadalupe Bass is a subspecies of the Black Bass and is only found in the Hill Country of Texas, most notably the Guadalupe River. You can find these bass spread throughout the Hill Country from San Antonio to Austin.

Here is a great web page with information from Texas Parks & Wildlife https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/gdb/

Through some research, I have found the Guadalupe bass to be quite the small ferocious fish. The Texas state record is just 3.71lbs and measured 17.25 in. The state of Texas has stated that a 12in Guadalupe Bass is a trophy fish. Recognition of the species is also very hard with the introduction of Smallmouth Bass in some of the rivers. So, finding a true Guadalupe Bass may be difficult.

Now, catching a Guadalupe Bass or just a bass in some of the Texas Hill country rivers can be difficult. One you have a limited amount of public shore access. When looking for shore access to the Hill Country rivers, go to google maps and scan the areas of the river and look for areas of green on google maps. This will designate some sort of public location. These are the areas to key in on if you do not have a boat, kayak or stand-up paddleboard.  Check out my social media articles for more information on how to use google maps and other social media tools to find fishing locations. Click Here https://www.thenationalangler.com/category/social-media-fishing/

The second part of catching bass on these rivers especially during the summer is getting away from tubers. During the extremely hot summer months, people flock to the Hill Country rivers to cool off. Well, they are everywhere and getting away from people cooling off is hard.

To be successful you need to be fishing from a boat, kayak, or stand-up paddleboard. You need to be on the river to target the fish you can’t from the shore. You need to be on one of these platforms to get to areas of the rivers with no shore access. This also gets you away from people swimming and tubing.

Let me know if you have caught a Guadalupe Bass or have any thoughts on fishing the Hill Country area for Guadalupe Bass.

Semper Fish!

Joe, The National Angler