Thread: A real fruit jar general discussion.

Originally Posted by torch

The "jest" I get out of all this is to pretty much don't fix it if it ain't broke/

+ 1

Your right Oleblue I don't fish Butla on a regular basis but wish I could. In fact I have only fished it twice in my life. I fished it back in October when MCC made its first appearance. I prefished on Friday and fished the tournament on Saturday. I managed to catch 14.62 which was good for a second place finish. Not bad for my first trip. I don't deny that it has some of the biggest crappie in MS if not the country but to say that there are 5 pound fish coming out of its water to the frying pan is just crazy talk!

93 replys so far. I think WB started this thread to try to compete with Majors cranking thread!

Nope, don't think it's got the stamina for that Speck. Maj created a monster with that one.

Nope, nope and nope.....I'm sure of nothing except this....there will be no membership requirement to fish the FJs. The point (to me anyhow) is to grow the group, not the pot. In my mind, we've got an exceptional, allbeit, quite homely group on y'alls part at least. I figure if a "local" or a "pro" shows up to fish one or more, he might like it and us and stick around and become a regular.

Take a couple of of examples:

Brandon, who won at Grenada......the boy is ignert and illiterate when it comes to computers. If they made a rotary dial cell phone, he'd have one. He's also fished a handful of other FJs and is Pstone's regular partner. This past Saturday, he didn't stick around not because he wasn't interested, but he pummeled the fish and lit right back out for more. While he's not quote unquote one of us, he's part of our extended family through Pstone, Me, Bigger and Vic.

What about Kent Driskoll and John Harrison...two dangerous people to have hanging around when there's money and crappie put together in the same sentence. They've also fished a few FJs total, and I suspect they'd fish more if they had the time, but work and a full schedule prevent it. I find it fantastic to have a couple of "good sticks" like that in the field and if one day I get lucky enough to bring home the bacon, I hope it's against a field that includes fishermen of this caliber. Matter of fact, I want to be just like Harrison when I grow up, except taller. Much taller.

Final Example...Brinks/Browing. Here's a team that has only fished one FJ....a sho nuff touring big time team at that and hold the AL record on 7 fish in a tournament when they rolled into Sardis and cleaned our clocks long lining when everyone else was pulling cranks and just thought we knew what we were doing. Shortly after, we had a dust up over whether we wanted it to be a members only deal or open to everyone. And they haven't been heard from since that I know about. Now, maybe that's because they didn't feel welcome after the blow up or maybe they just have bigger fish to fry or larger checks to cash, I dunno. But up to that point, I'd never even considered long lining to be an option, so I would not have had that opportunity to learn something about it.

Now, of the 3 examples I gave, which one are you willing to call and tell them they're not welcome because they're not "one of us"? I say and have always said, the more the merrier and the harder you are to whip, the more welcome you are. Besides, it's just about no fun to whip a bunch of DDs over and over and over.

Wannabe...

I agree with ES about who should fish the FJ's. At least one of them should be a member of C.com. That will keep the locals, ones with no job and fish everyday or the ones whose job it is to fish every day, from taking the money. Much like what happened this week-end. First and Second place left with the money did not hang out at all, just took the cash and went on down the road. Although there is nothing wrong with this, I just did not think this is what these tournaments were really for. I would think the FJ's are more about braggin' rites, fellowship, and BECOMING BETTER ANGLERS.

It would be nice for the winners to say what they did to catch the fish. Not necessarily point out the exact spot they were fishing, but at least some info that would be benificial to whoever is gonna fish the next day. You know something like we caught them in 20' of water pushing cranks at 17' in the main river the best color was electric chicken, or single poling the grass in feeder creeks in 18" of water using a purple hair jig with some chartruse in it. This would help out some of us new guys that ain't that good at catching them and give us something to try when the bite is as poor as it was last week-end. This way, even if you did not catch them on Saturday, you might be able to put something together on Sunday, if you stay and fish. This would more than offset the $50 for getting in the tournament, 20 boats worth of info can go along way. At least give you a clue on what NOT to do (i.e. anything I do, do the opposite and you will probably do allright).

I have never got one my biggest is 4.2 but I can tell you I have seen old men get fish that were 5 or less than a oz off out of that lake and I have never heard any more about them.

Originally Posted by oleblue

I have never got one my biggest is 4.2 but I can tell you I have seen old men get fish that were 5 or less than a oz off out of that lake and I have never heard any more about them.

As a kid, I lived next door to one of those old men. He'd go out for a few hours and come home with 2 or 3 fish...HUGE fish. Just enough for supper.