We finally finished up Alex's Fishing Show for 2017. We improved very little on camera stability, its hard to keep it steady when watching the kids and keeping close to keep them from getting hooked or falling in the water. Also jumping bench seats for nets, etc makes it difficult at times. I am really happy with the background music I used this year, and I worked on doing a better job fading videos out for the next scene. We started out really struggling this spring, water temps were stuck and the post spawn was the toughest I ever faced, drawn out and brutally tough fishing.
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When the summer water temps finally hit, fishing became fantastic! We didn't have one single disappointing trip this summer whatsoever.

We started with Great Grandma Shirley Squirrely. We had a blast with her and saw more wildlife on the drive home than ever before. We then got out on the river bank night fishing, then got up north with Sam, and finished up on Popple lake this weekend with the twins. Every trip was fun and every guest caught good fish by the time our trip was over.

A SPECIAL Thank You goes out to  KEVIN VANDAM, AARON MARTENS, MIKE IACONELLI, & BRANDON PALANIUK for the intros to the Alex Fishing Show!!!!!

We have had great lure sales in July, our best month ever. We are on track to double our sales from 2016! Thank you to all of our awesome customers and continue to send us your fish catch pictures on our lures! We still have a small number of James Gang Flexfit hats remaining in both L/XL and S/M sizes. Our Dunkin Frogs completely sold out in Bass Size, and it is appearing that we may be out for the year! Stanley Jigs has completely ran out of their 4/0 Double Take Frog Hooks. We are still building the larger Musky/Pike/Giant Largemouth Dunkin Frog with the 5/0 Double Take hook, in fact Ross's Sport Shop in Phillips just placed another order of them and our skirted Bee Whacker LM and will be stocking them in a few weeks. We have a decent amount of Lovertail 2's still in stock, and have the parts to build about 4 more custom Lovertail 2 Musky Waakers. We have a lot of parts to make several BABY SQUID BAITS, and tis lure was by far our #1 lure of 2017 for catching fish. Also, the biggest fish of the year, no question. I think this lure will be absolutely incredible in the fall months. 

We are holding a fall tournament on the Dairyland Flowage near Ladysmith, WI on October 14, 2017. Entry fee is $20. This is an invitational event. For more information, click on our "EVENTS" menu and fill out the RSVP if you are interested in competing in this event. This is a "fun" event, so we expect honesty from all anglers chosen to compete. 100% of the entry fees will be paid out to the angler with the most weight, and the angler with the heaviest bass of the tournament. This will be unique being that it is based on an afternoon/evening bite and has a late start time. As of today we have 13 anglers very interested.

We have parked the GENERAL LEE boat until Labor Day weekend. We will fish hard in the early to mid fall period and take a break during the month of August. Have a fun summer fishing, and check out 11-year-old Sariah Maylee below. She competed in the MIDWEST HMONG OUTDOORS Junior Tournament on Bald Eagle Lake, MN this past weekend, with no experience on this body of water. Sariah managed to boat a full 4 bass limit with off shore deep water tactics on her dad's secret finesse lures. Way to go Sariah!!

After the struggles of the drawn-out cold spring, we finally have found some fantastic success in the last several weeks. In the last three fishing trips, we landed quality fish during every trip! We have found that our BABY SQUID BAIT is an excellent lure when the fish are deep, but also in stained water we can catch them at any depth with our brighter colored variations. Our green pumpkin with a nickel-plated spinner blade is the one to throw in clear water. I found success last year in late summer on Lake Michigan on this color, and lately a clear lake in the Shell Lake area has been producing some outstanding fish on this color as well. Also, our white body/chartreuse blade worked well in stained waters, such as the Mississippi River and a few other stained lakes in the region. I fished Lake Menomin on July 4, and got into fish at all 3 areas I worked over. I had no previous experience there, and the algae bloom was severe, water clarity was around a foot, tops. I landed a pike on my 3rd cast of the short trip, and later hooked into a largemouth and smallmouth bass under the I94 bridge on the bright variation. I did land a beauty on our Flappin Jig with bright colors and a Trokar hook as well..

Alex and his fishing buddy Sam H. headed out with me on July 13th to break Alex's bad streak in 2017 of not catching bass. He turned it around big time, getting a 19" (+/- 1 inch margin of error) to the boatside while Sam and he tried netting it for 17 seconds. A few errors were made by both parties and the bass had enough, throwing his squid bait and leaving the scene. Even though he failed to land the giant, only 10 minutes later he found another beast on his squid bait, and this time Sam & him teamed up and landed the bass perfectly. The fish measured 18.5" on the bumpboard and weighed 3 lbs 9 oz on the digital scale! This is the second largest bass of Alex's life, and naturally he screamed Iaconelli - style as he celebrated.

Sam boated the first fish of the trip - a nice 23" Northern Pike. It battled hard at the boat and took the fight under the boat for a while. Sam had a blast battling this angry guy and it hit the Squid Bait will 100% effort 

Time was winding down, and it was about time to fire up the Evinrude and head back home. In the final minutes, Sam picked a fight with a thick 16" Largemouth bass, weighing in at 2 lbs 11 oz on our digital scale. Another fine battle and another fish that drilled the Squid Bait with full force and gave us plenty to celebrate and be proud of!

We ran out of time, pulled the two beauties out of the livewell, took some pictures and like always, we released them to fight again. A great tip by MARK ZONA, Bassmaster host and host of his own ZONA'S AWESOME FISHING SHOW - always kidnap your better legal bass. At the end of the day, you end up with a multiple fish photo opportunity before you release them. We made some great memories after a fun night of swimming, camping, McDonalds Playplace, fishing, and playing tag in the yard while shooting each other with Nerf guns James Bond style.

There is nothing more fun than spending time in the outdoors with children. Start them young and they will impress you with incredible accomplishments. A 4 year old boy had a crazy idea to start a lure company, and within a few years established it, had great sales, come up with outstanding lure designs that catch fish when store bought lures don't, and possibly an opportunity to pursue his business as an adult. Take a kid fishing and teach them about how much fun the outdoors can be!! For tips or information on this fantastic opportunity, look up the IKE FOUNDATION at www.theikefoundation.org.

Our shirts have arrived, and all but 1 have already been sold. We do have one XXL Orange long sleeve performance fishing shirt available for sale, and will be listed on eBay quite soon. Our navy blue versions were incredible, and MBC Sports once again impressed us. Our Flex Fit hats are on the way, expected to be ready by the end of the month. 8 L/XL and 4 S/M are coming. Most L/XL are already sold, and we will not order more until the 2018 Madison Fishing Expo. Let us know right away if you are interested in a hat, they probably won't last long! Also Ross's Sport Shop has run low on the larger Dunkin Frogs (5/0 Hook), and will have us build another variety of colors in a shipment around the end of the month! Best of luck fishing, and check out Tori and her 9" bluegill caught in the past week!!

Finally, the dragged out, awful (for me) messed up 2017 spawn deal is OVER!!! After water temperatures refused to rise for about a month it seemed, I simply failed to catch fish. I seen a lot of them sight fishing, and they were not in the mood to hit what they did last year when sight fishing, Everywhere I went was a struggle. I fished a tournament on Dells Pond on June 10th, and managed to boat ONE bass, under legal size, and weighed in ZERO pounds personally. My partner, JAZ DUNCAN managed to bring a few to the scales, but you can pretty much just say that I finished 18th out of 18 anglers. Bye bye entry fee....

Congratulations to BASSMASTER OPENS Angler Scott Pellegrin & his partner Dylan Kierstead for winning the Dells Pond Open in the UNDER 100 SPORTS LEAGUE. Justin Rowe ran a fun tournament and the competitors were great guys.
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I had a 2 day window this weekend to get out and fish like crazy. The barometer was high, which is about my biggest fear, and I went aggressive after them anyway. I got pounded with off and on storms, and the shallow water action was non-existant. I used my Marcum ice fishing flasher (since my 3 year old Humminbird died FOR GOOD) and located a mess of fish in deep water. After failing to even see a single bass whatsoever in the several hours I fished, I decided to tie on Alex's BABY SQUID BAIT design. This is the lure that saved my horrible Lake Michigan trip last year on Big Bay de Noc and turned it around for me. Well it did the same for me yesterday and today. Yesterday I caught a 13.5" Largemouth Bass in DEEEEEEP water. Then I lost about a 4+ 19" to 20" monster bass. I went "IKE" and screamed at the bass in joy knowing I started a successful pattern on a very difficult, clear lake. Other anglers came flying over after hearing me celebrate. To bluff them, I went back to the shallows throwing the Dunkin Frog like the topwater bite was happening. They hung out a while catching none, and left. I then went deep on the SQUID, and caught legal bass after legal bass. At one point I caught 4 fish on four casts in a row. I ran all over this lake looking for matching structure, and everytime I did, I caught fish. I landed an 18" largemouth at 3-10, a 17", a pile of 15s, and a few pike. It was an incredible half an hour late in the day.

The following morning, James gang Pro Staffer KEVIN MARTINEK, joined me on a small lake in the Chippewa County forest. We hit the water pretty early and started with topwaters. We had steady action on small stunted bass in the 11-13.5" range the entire time, landing 12 and missing a bunch more. We tried for gills on bobbers later but they seemed inactive with the high barometer and heavy wind issues. We scored one on the Dunkin Frog, 6 more on a Stanley Baby Ribbit, and 4 more on the Molix Lover. We had a blast having the bass explode on our lures, even though they were all under legal bag limit sizes.

After Kevin and I left the Chippewa County forest lake, we hauled the CRAWFISH BANDIT back up to Washburn County to hopefully continue on my previous night's pattern. Unfortunately the pattern changed. It was still there but not nearly as effective as the previous night. Also some smaller bass moved in shallower and it seemed like the bigger bass went even deeper yet. But as it was getting boring, Kevin tied on a squid bait for the first time ever. He caught one on his first cast and a few more shortly after that. I found some luck on a DEEEEEEP brushpile, and was very surprised to find a complete multi-species location. My first fish I hook was another beast of a largemouth, around 18." He tossed my lure on the way in and hurt my feelings. We circled back and I landed a very nice 25" Northern Pike.  As we circled back again, I was shocked to land a 19.5" walleye pike on our BABY SQUID BAIT. Jaz Duncan had informed us in a tournament pre-fishing deal on Red Cedar Lake, that the walleyes were hitting that lure. I had no clue they even existed in the lake that we were fishing, so it was a lot of fun pulling him into the boat. On our final pass, I boated a solid legal smallmouth bass that fought and fought and fought. He had a great attitude and I appreciated his company. It was a great 2 days of fishing and I felt like I accomplished a lot by learning more fish movement in clear water, expanding on tactics taught to me by Pro Guide, Dale Stroschein, and managing to catch a very strong weight of legal bass the first night, and a nice mix of species the second day on Alex's awesome lure. The time in Chippewa County was a blast as well, seeing smaller, more aggressive largemouth pound lures in the shallows.

CEO, LURE DESIGNER, & COMPANY FOUNDER ALEX JAMES headed out to the Chippewa River in search of delicious catfish at night last week. Unfortunately, the catfish were not biting at our spot. Fortunately, a 13" Freshwater Drum (aka Sheepshead) decided to eat our nightcrawler within the first 5 minutes of bank fishing. We proudly took our Sheepshead home to fry up with some crappies left over in the freezer Saturday. We used our Ultimate Panfish Recipe that is available on this website. In complete honesty, that drum was better than ANY crappie or walleye I have EVER eaten in my life. We fried the drum with the crappies, and the drum was much tastier. It made a fantastic breakfast before attending Mopar Man's wedding to his wonderful new wife Rebecca.

We are proud to announce that we are now dealers of Stanley Jigs, Kalin's Soft Plastics, and soon to be dealers of VMC Hook company! Stanley Jigs is best known for the Stanley Ribbit and Baby Ribbit frogs, as well as their killer Double-Take hook they designed with Mustad for the ultimate frog hook. We use their products to build our Dunkin' Frog, so the dealership allows us to lower our prices a few dollars on the Dunkin' Frog in the future. Kalin's sizmic series is incredible, and the sizmic grub/shad are the ONLY tails that we recommend using on our Lovertail 2. The Kalin's 3.8" Sizmic Grub is perfect on our bass sized Lovertail 2, the 4.8" Sizmic Shad belongs on our musky version. The action is incredible and imitates forage so well. The nice thing about being a Kalin's dealer, we also get dealership bulk prices on Acme, Kastmaster, Uncle Josh, and many other fine products. Kalin's makes great jigs for tube anglers and also for our Baby Squid Bait. VMC Hooks are amazing in both treble form as well as the HD weighted swimbait hooks and Flippin' Hooks that were designed by our hero, Mike Iaconelli. It will be great to get access as a dealer to these hooks. More information to come on the VMC dealership, but I can quote prices immediately for any Stanley or Kalin's requests. 

James Gang Fishing Company CEO, Lure Designer, and tournament angler, Alex Piontek, plans on taking his Lovertail 2 Musky Waaker out to the weeds and do some filming this week. We are not trying to catch any fish, just trying to capture the beauty of his lure design running through the weeds and lily pads. A bonus musky or big bass wouldn't upset us however. We plan to throw our Dunkin Frog on video as well, and the lake we are headed to is full of frogs for natural food, so you never know what may happen. The weather looks like a good day to film, clear, sunny skies. Also, some James Gang lure tip videos will be coming out very shortly, advice on how to fish our Lovertail 2, our Bass Jerker, our Dunkin Frog, and our Baby Squid Bait, So we hope to post something cool on YouTube. Also a few more bait shops in NW Wisconsin should be placing orders very soon, we will announce these locations when their lures are shipped. Be sure to email us your pictures of fish caught on our lures at 6lbsmallmouth@gmail.com!!

It was a great turnout for our first ever James Gang Bass Invitational on Red Cedar Lake, WI on May 27, 2017. 15 Anglers competed in boats ranging from 200 horsepower deck boats to 14 foot aluminum boats to kayaks. The 15 anglers competed in a Major League Fishing event, in which the winner would take home $300 cash, and the angler who landed the heaviest bass of the day would win a $75 "DAILY LUNKER" Big Bass bonus. The list of anglers ranged from amateurs, FLW BFL anglers, CWBA Opens anglers, and to contestants of state and national championships in the KBF Kayak Bass Fishing series. The date picked for this event was based on the typical average water temps and fishing conditions for this time of the year being about prime for the easiest catching of the year for this chain of lakes. But about 6 days before the beginning of the tournament, the area received a very cold rainfall and tornado activity that plummeted water temperatures. This post-poned the smallmouth bass spawn and really created a funk for the largemouth bass that were staging and trying to prepare making their beds. What was a highly-anticipated scoretracker-lighting beatdown, full of top-water action and high-numbers of fish catches on power fishing techniques, turned into very slow reaction-bite presentation tournament, many closed-mouth topwater misses, and an absolute negative feeding pattern for both the power fisherman, as well as the finesse anglers.

Anglers were up hours before the start time of 6:30 am, to make the long road trip and prepare their equipment and launch at the Waldo Carlson County Park on Red Cedar Lake. The 5 kayak anglers chose to launch at Hemlock Lake, and use their kayak advantages to their fullest with the ability to navigate very shallow water and attack the lily pads and spawning flats with their favorite pre-spawn tactics. The aluminum boat anglers launched at the Red Cedar Lake county park (Waldo Carlson) and spent their day focusing on Red Cedar and Balsam Lakes.

STEVE PIONTEK rigging his fishing equipment on the eve of the James Gang Bass Invitational

​ALEX PIONTEK headed to the boat with his Mike Iaconelli "IKE DUDE" rod, in high hopes of winning his first adult tournament

As in all Major League Fishing tournaments, the anglers are very anxious to see who scores first, who gets momentum, and who gets behind in a hurry. In this event, we all had a gut feeling that we would all light it up fast with the 2 day warming trend possibly turning the bite around, or all struggle due to the low water temps. But only on his FIFTH cast, Steve Piontek was the first angler to register on the Scoretracker. His firetiger spinnerbait landed him a 1 lb 10 oz largemouth bass, and he would sit alone on the Scoretracker for quite sometime. Alex Piontek, Steve's 8 year old grandson and CEO of James Gang Fishing Company, felt that his "Papa Steve" had the tournament in the bag already, and quickly became nervous that the $300 prize would be out of his own reach. We had to explain to the little tournament angler that in MLF formats, the tournament can be won or lost in minutes, and no weight is safe enough until the end of the day.

The Scoretracker Live standings remained still for quite a while, With Mat leading Steve by a small amount. The scores and sizes were low, so in this day it appeared at any point, a giant bass of 4+ pounds could totally take the tournament over. The smaller 1-2 pound fish were seeming to be the only ones willing to bite on occasion. The 3-4 lb largemouth were making themselves VERY present in the clear shallows, circling in defense of their future bedding areas. We went through many sight-fishing finesse techniques, with 100% failure on about 30+ bass sightings on Balsam Lake. Becoming frustrated we quit on the big largemouths and decided to pursue skinny smallmouths on the James Gang Bass Jerker on gravel and hanging near laydowns. Shortly after working the shoreline, Steve felt a solid bite on his firetiger spinner once again. I threw a cast right where his fish was with my Ghost Minnow Bass Jerker and hooked up with a fighter. I was extremely excited to finally land a fish - a 1 lb 1 oz beauty - but unfortunately this black crappie was not eligible in the tournament. Measuring 12" even on the bump board, it tied my personal best crappie and was something to laugh about. I then checked the score tracker and found that Dan Weideman put his clear-water experience to use and boated a bass at 1 pounds 7 ounces. He was on the hunt and not backing down. Shortly after he landed a beautiful smallmouth bass out of Red Cedar, weighing in at 2 pounds 10 ounces. If you look at scoretracker it shows 3 fish at a smaller average, his 2 fish totaled 4 lbs 1 oz, but he thought Doc and he were fishing in Europe and were measuring and taking pictures in kilograms. We took their numbers at lunch and converted them into real weights and found that Dan had taken the weight lead, as well as the big bass lead shortly before halftime.

Late in period 1 , I managed to boat two legal smallmouths, 1 crappie. and 2 pike on my Bass Jerker suspending jerkbait. To my surprise, the smallmouths were on their beds and spawning, which in typical years on this chain would have been weeks ago. I decided to start period 2 with the jerkbait. I got on a fast spree of fish, and boated 4 smallmouths in about 10 minutes, of which 2 were legal for the tournament. I shot up the leaderboard and overtook Dan Weideman, and even though I did not feel like I was safe on the leaderboard at all, I was fully committed now as I had landed 9 fish in a short time on my favorite presentation. I felt like the chance was there to now pull away from the field and catch fish at a very fast pace as I usually do when the jerk bait bite was on. But after my 10 minute flurry, time kept ticking away fast and the bites just were completely non-existant. I kept checking the scoretracker live nervously, and to my surprise everytime I remained the leader for hours. As time was winding down and the bites never came back, I had to scrap my confidence lure. Even though Scoretracker live showed me winning with little time left, I knew the kayak boys had poor reception and at any point they could light it up with heavy Hemlock Largemouth and destroy me with one fish. And even at my lead, ANYONE IN THE FIELD could over take me with only one to two quality fish in a row. I put the jerkbait rod away, even though I was in the lead, and we called an audible. We headed back into the area that was loaded with big largemouth bass, knowing the only way I would hold everyone off was to land a big one or two to seal the deal. Alex threw on a Stanley Baby Ribbit, dipped the feet in chartreuse dye, and on his first cast had a nice 1.5 lb or more largemouth on for about a second and a half. He paused, then set the hook well like a frog guy is supposed to do (he has caught many on the KVD Sexy Frog at 6 years old) but the bass managed to throw the lure and ruin Alex's day.I then threw on the James Gang Fishing DUNKIN' FROG, red buzzer, same color body Alex was using with dyed feet. I got a 2 hits right away that didnt hook up, both appearing to be under-sized largemouth that wouldn't register anyway. I then switched to the trusty finesse worm, and in the last hour, all I managed was 2 small pike. I ran out of time, and refused to check Scoretracker Live the last hour in fear. As we idled through the no wake channel, I checked to see that Chang Lor overtook me, and I had not yet seen what the other kayak boys had done to me yet. When we met up at the awards ceremony at Waldo Carlson County Park, Jaz Duncan registered two nice smallmouth in the closing minutes. He figured his pattern out right when time ran out and was about to give us a beatdown. He finished the day with the heaviest average fish. Kevin Martinek was disgusted as the bass were smashing his topwater with closed mouths and he only managed to get 2 of them in the boat. He figured he had around 18-20 fish nail his lures, and almost all of them did not hit it to feed. If they would have, Kevin would have owned this tournament with his #1 confidence lure. Small Craft Outfitters Guide and KBF tournament angler Tyler Theide managed to put together a pattern in the closing minutes as well, registering a 1 lb largemouth and catching multiple under-sized ones as well. TouFue Moua headed out after he lost a 4  pound and a 2 pound bass, in which the 4 pound class fish was a guaranteed victory and a big bass of the day. Mat Eichinger managed 3 more fish in the second half and ended up with the highest number of fish for the event. 

When the event was over, the anglers got together at Waldo Carlson County Park and held their awards presentation. James Gang Fishing Company CEO and Lead Lure Designer ALEX PIONTEK joined MAT EICHINGER in presentation the awards and the prize drawings. CHANG LOR won the $300 first prize, as well as the $75 DAILY LUNKER Award. JAZ DUNCAN won a $50 James Gang Fishing Company Tackle Kit. MAT EICHINGER won a James Gang Fishing Company Dunkin; Frog. The winner of the JB FISH SAUCE Stick and Marinade kits was STEVE PIONTEK. The winner of the HANG OUTDOORS painted crankbait kit was JAZ DUNCAN, and the drawing grand prize winner of the SMALL CRAFT OUTFITTERS guided kayak trip was KEVIN ROGALSKI. We celebrated with more plates of venison, took a group photo, handed out the prizes and awards, talked a little fishing as the kids played in the playground, and then we all hit the road after an exhausting day of non-stop casting. Thanks so much to all the anglers for your great attitudes and sportsmanship to each other. Also we appreciate the honesty and integrity shown from all in our scoring system.

A special thanks goes to HANG OUTDOORS and JB's FISH SAUCE. Please check them out on Facebook. They both make outstanding products!

A VERY SPECIAL thank you goes to SMALL CRAFT OUTFITTERS Guide Service. To book a trip with Kayak Guides TYLER THEIDE and 2017 James Gang Bass Invitational Winner CHANG LOR, visit their website at www.smallcraftoutfitters.com or call 507-400-FISH (3474) These guys are experienced tournament anglers and will get you in premium Feel Free Kayaks on great bodies of water at peak fishing times.

If you are interested in competing in this tournament in 2018, contact Tournament Director Mat Eichinger at guitar_mat@yahoo.com or contact Jesse at 6lbsmallmouth@gmail.com for more information. Enjoy the following pictures and send us your fish catch pictures on James Gang Fishing lures!!!!

James Gang Fishing proudly supports THE IKE FOUNDATION and FISHERS OF KIDS ANGLERS ACADEMY. Support kids in the outdoors! For more information check out www.theikefoundation.org and www.gofundme.com/fishersofkidsanglersacademy.

We are super excited that the Wisconsin game fish season has finally arrived! Our boys from the Elk Mound high school had a fantastic day in their first ever tournament. Galen and Cole took 6th place out of 35 teams, just a few ounces shy of 4th. Blaze and James rocked it as well with a very respectable day finishing 16th. And I am looking forward to the other Elk Mound boys getting revenge at their next tournament and lighting up the scales with heavy bass.

As usual, my beautiful wife, Angela, snuck out on the opening day of fishing and hit up her secret trout streams. Like usual, she had a fantastic morning of fishing. She managed to put 12 trout in the landing net. She had to cross a creek so a camera phone wasn't an option, so she was not able to photo her biggest fish of the day in her secret spot - a giant 18" Brook Trout! She had to throw most of her fish back due to the slot limit regulations. She took some pictures of her smaller fish that she caught early on. I was so proud to hear that she gave her bag limit of beautiful delicious brook trout to a elderly trout angler who wasn't able to land any fish on the opener, and really struggled getting around the banks with his age. She made his day and I suggest when you guys see some older, hard-core anglers struggling with their day, maybe offer to help them out or give them a few fish to make them go home with a huge smile.

We worked hard getting our old 1976 Evinrude back in running condition. We had an issue with the starter, and the lower unit seals. After removing the lower unit, and pulling the inner bearing out with its oil retainers, the lower unit became leak-free and water free! Also the new starter seemed to work fantastic on Lake Menomin where we had the Crawfish Bandit General Lee Lund full throttle the Thursday before opener. We took it out the following week and ran into some fuel pressure issues and will be replacing the fuel pump in the following week, hoping we will be back on the water hammering smallmouth bass in no time. I did manage to get out on Lake Chetac while some buddies were preparing for their CWBA Tournament, and with only 20 minutes before we had to leave, I hooked into a beautiful female smallmouth. She weighed in at 3 lbs 10 oz, and was 17.75" on the bump board. She was a gorgeous fish with beautiful tiger stripes in clear water. I was proud to let her go after some nice pictures so someone else can battle her in the future.

Lazy Monk Brewery in Eau Claire held a Spring Market May 13th, and was kind enough to invite Alex down to run a stand selling his lures. They were looking for local vendors and wanted to showcase spring themed items.  Alex did well at the show and we were very happy with our total sales. Thanks for everyone that checked us out! It was fun to explain our lures and help the customers choose color options based on certain water clarity conditions.

And our final update, our good buddies Doc and Zim went on an opening day adventure. Zim got into a few nice largemouth bass on our Flappin' Jig in Bull Bluegill color. Doc was ready to become quite impatient watching Zim get strikes while he didn't get any. He had a Flappin' Jig on as well and stuck with it until 11 am. Right before they called it quits, Doc Gilles hooked into a hog, a girthy, fat-headed slob of a bass in our "secret lake" in NW Wisconsin. When he got it in the boat, it measured 18" on the bump board, but the girth and weight for its length was ridiculous. Congrats Doc and Good Buddy Zim on another successful day on the water!! I managed to sneak out and catch one smallmouth on Old Abe lake Friday on one of Randy Henderson's Lethal Baits Poison colored tubes in garlic scent. Kevin Martinek hooked into a few with his favorite topwater lures and his best fish of the day was a really thick 14.5" smallmouth bass. The small pike were active, and Kevin had quite a few strikes from some really nice pike that hit his lures poorly and weren't able to hook up. The day improved as the water temp rose, in the morning the bite was very very slow and discouraging. Here are a few pics from Doc, Kevin, and I. Good luck fishing and send us your pics to 6lbsmallmouth@gmail.com!!!