I had the opportunity to talk with professional fishing guide, outdoor writer, and photographer Brad Wiegmann. Brad Weigmann has owned and operated a fishing guide service on Beaver Lake since 1989. Brad also does guided trips at lake Swepco. Brad offers guided trips for largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass, stripers, hybrids, and white bass.Brad has fished 58 FLW tournaments since 2000 including the FLW Tour, FLW Series, FLW Stren Series, and the FLW BFL.

Brad has qualified for the Stren Championship in 2001, 2002, 2004,2005,2007, and 2008. Brad is also writes for American Bass Angler Magazine, Heartland Trails Magazine, Probass Network, Futurebass.com, The Great American Heartland Trails Magazine, and he has a weekly column in the Westfield Weekly Newspaper in Oklahoma. Just recently Versus the outdoor channel has been keeping in touch with him for the latest in spawning activity down at Beaver Lake.

I asked Brad about the fishing down at Beaver Lake and Brad says that this is one ofBeaver Lakes better years. He says that the water has been high for the last couple of years which has really helped the fish out. Right now the fish are still in the mix and some of them are still shallow. Lately he has been on a roll with a topwater. He is catching his fish working pencil poppers along extended points. The technique he says is great because it has been catching all kinds of fish from largemouth to stripers. He has been catching a lot more quality fish on this technique but he also mentioned that a shakeyhead has been producing better numbers. Brads versatile in that he guides for so many different species. Continue reading ‘Fishing with Brad Wiegmann’

AiRRUS just recently came out with new series of bass rods, the  K-Light.  The K-Light rods are a spin off of what was the n-syn model. These newer rods still feature an entire graphite handle. The rods are extremely light and responsive. The rods are also extremely sensitive. The rods are exceptional for throwing jigs and plastics. You can feel every little rock and pebble while dragging your bait.  A 6’6” mh rod weighs about 3.5 ounces and the 7 foot mh models weigh around 5 ounces which helps make a long day on the water easy on your wrists and hands.  Continue reading ‘New K-Light Rods from AiRRUS’

The fishing out at Thousand Hills is catching on fire. The jig bite is really hot right now. I got out after classes for a couple of hours tonight and had some fun. The two jigs that are producing the best for me right now are a 3/8oz Pig Sticker Bait Scrawler Jig in Black and Blue and a 1/4 oz Pig Sticker Bait Baxter Jig in electric blue.

I’ve been throwing baby paca chunks as trailers in orange crawl or green pumpkin. The bigger fish are really keying in on shallow cover next to deep water. When you go to flip your jig the fish will let you know very quickly if they are there. A couple of the fish I caught tonight have bloody tails so they have been starting to fan the bottom a bit.

I’ve been throwing my jigs on 14lb flourocarbon line with a 7 foot medium heavy AiRRUS Co-Matrix Rod.  I’ve been catching some fish on a Pig Sticker Tandem Colorado Black spinnerbait as well but they are not the quality that I’m interested in. It seems like the spinnerbait bite isn’t here just yet. Those fish have been coming from windy pockets on a slow rolled retrieve.

I’ve been graphing some deep fish but havn’t had as much luck fishing for them. I’ve been having my best luck in about 4 to 5 feet of water in heavy cover. It seems like a lot of the bigger fish are still main lake orientated. My Flying Fisherman Sunglasses have been helping me a lot in spoting some of the pieces of cover just under the surface.  I didn’t get to fish a lot of the areas I wanted to tonight because of the wind. Here’s a pic of two of my 6 keepers this evening

I made the hike down to Table Rock for the Ozark division BFL that was held over the weekend.  My boater said he had been on some big fish over the past week and had caught one that was around 8lbs working jigs down in the White River. Early in the week he was able to pull 20lbs off of some of his spots.  I was pretty excited to hear that he was on a jig bite. When I got to ramp in the morning the water was as slick as could be with no wind. Not exactly what I was hoping to see.

We started out the day working a pea gravel transition out to a point. I put the first fish in the boat. A short smallmouth on a jig in about 25 feet of water.  We then made a run down to a secondary chunk rock point and I put a short spot in the boat on a shakey head.  We made a run to another area and again I caught a short on a shakey head. The fish seemed to have scattered away from where they were holding earlier in the week. We worked over the area a little to try and see if they had moved back in the creek a little or out a little. Continue reading ‘Table Rock Ozark BFL’

So much time and effort goes into tournament fishing. Before you even get to the lake you’ve probably spent hours looking at various maps, called local tackle shops, searched the internet for water conditions and fishing reports. You’ve also taken the time to organize your boat and get all your tackle organized to save you time during tournament hours.

You’ve gone over your rods and reels checking to see if anything needs to be replaced.  You probably did a bit of driving to get to your tournament destination. Pulling a boat a couple of hours with gas prices can get expensive in a hurry. A lot of times you spend more hours driving than you will fishing. You get to the lake and you might spend a couple of days pre-fishing trying to find the winning fish. You’ve roughed it the last couple of nights and slept in your car. You’ve invested a great deal of time and energy. Continue reading ‘Never Give Up…..’