-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JAN 20 07 By Jim Porter Boy, am I going out on the proverbial limb, or what? I really should NOT write the following. But, all you folks who have fished with us and done so fantastic have shown that great fishing is really attainable – IF you have a super place like the Stick Marsh/ Farm 13. ‘So many fish and so little time’, I think the man said. In preparation for IN-Fisherman TV back with us 22- 27 Jan 07, we have been sorting locations and fishing techniques to assure successful filming. That is a bit like selecting prospective transplant donors to get a good heart or liver. You make your best decisions and then hope Mother Nature did not slip you an anomaly not anticipated. Going out on that proverbial limb, I advised IN-FISHERMAN Senior Editor, Doug Stange, that we would be pitting our best ‘lucky fishermen’ image against Mother Nature on this one. Monday, 22 January, promises 15-20 MPH winds from the SW, with a strong cold front coming in on Monday night. Monday’s winds are not a problem. We will be in the south end of the Farm. BUT, with a forecast of 10-12 degree lower temperatures on Tuesday, we can see that this is a strong, fast cold front. Cold fronts, we don’t care about. Fish never have needed a jacket. BUT – those NW and North winds will possibly blow out the south end of Farm 13, our bass Mecca at present. We could have that ‘dirty water and big waves’ issue!! I sense a ‘Stan Daniel fishes the mudfish hole’ episode here. Maybe, just maybe, we will get that giant before we get blown away. So, here is our ‘fearless prediction’ --- things will be easy on Monday, as the SW winds will not affect us much on the south end of the Farm. Whether we get that giant bass depends a bit on skill; but, it will also depend on that variable of all fishermen –‘luck’. We will make a LOT of casts in a LOT of right places. Will the odds give us that giant bass? I sure hope so. We had her on twice in front of the camera last year, only to see her toss that plug back at us at the last minute. My prediction is that having two anglers totally consumed with the ‘fishing bug’ in the same boat at the same time will cause the fish to simply give up and surrender (heck, we’ll put them back anyway!! Come on, bass. What’s better than that? Don’t you want to be a TV star?!). And, after we get the giant bass, we plan to go get the giant crappie. Heck, I already know where that fish is. Well, I know where he/she ‘was’. From the picture, below, you can see I caught him/her a couple of days ago. I sure hope some of them are still there!! 19 January 2007 I went looking for giant bass ready to eat the end off a rod and a TV camera. What I found was a LOT of bass in the 3-5 lb. range. They would simply and jump and do those American Idol auditions quite well. But, they were 5-6 lbs. shy of a ‘TV bass’. Maybe, just maybe, they are waiting on the camera. I sure hope so. We caught them on 10-inch worms, JuneBug RIPPIN’ Sticks (some on the surface!!), ½ oz. jigs with e 4-inch RIPPIN’ Stick trailer, and a loud chartreuse spinnerbait. So, the lure choice appears VERY flexible. It will be ‘location’ that counts. We plan to film some of those giant crappie, too. So, I checked a hole that I did not show Mickey Arbogast, Sam Carmicheal, and Chuck Adams on recent trips. They caught a lot of crappie, but I saved one place for Doug Stange. The problem is that I caught the TV fish this day that I checked it. Dang!! It was 2.4 lbs. That fish would have made me famous. A TV star! I could have had free beer and pretzels at the fishing club meeting, too. Might have had my picture somewhere other than my ex-wife’s ‘Most Wanted’ list. I tried tying the fish to a bush, but the line broke. Oh, well, she is still swimming in Farm 13. I know where she WAS. Sure hope I know where she IS NOW. She’s pretty, isn’t she?? 18 January 2007 Sam Carmicheal and I went looking for big bass. We did not find the ‘big ones’. But, we did find a good number of 3-5 lb. fish. Sam fishes mostly for crappie these days and we had got him ‘fished up’ on them back a short spell (see the Fishing Report for 1 Dec 06. This time, we took a few shiners and let Sam see what the bass could do. All the bass we what we term ‘good quality fish’ – fat and mean. Maybe we saved the giants for Stange and company!!