Kevin Van Dam Forums

Toothy Critter

2008-08-30T11:30:33Z

Hound Dog and I hit the water this morning and were tearing up the schooling spots when this toothy critter chomped down on his Rat-L-Trap. For those who have never seen one of these, it’s called an alligator gar.

catfish boxing

2008-11-13T17:53:02Z

I was out on Lewis and Clark Lake in SD. My grampa and I were fishing for catfish on a rocky bank with bottem bouncers and nightcrawlers. I ended up hooking up with a nice 10lb. channel. I got it up on the rocks and then my line broke with the bottom bouncer still stuck in the rocks right next to the catfish. So my grampa jumped over their to grab the bottem bouncer with a fast sweep of his hands but he missed three times punching the rocks and the catfish each and everytime. He finally got it and came up with bloody knuckles, the catfish, and the bottom bouncer. It was so funny watching him punch the catfish.

Grampas’ bad luck

2008-11-12T21:17:49Z

This happend about 8 yers ago on Table Rock Lake. My grampa was out catfishing on the big boat dock and he hadn’t got a single bite all week until now. Well he didn’t bring a net because of not getting a bite but he got bit and he ended u reeling in a 40 or so pound catfish. We weren’t able to weigh it because it broke the line with about 4ft. to go before it would have been on the dock. So always bring a net for you catfishermen.

Trouble in the tank…

2008-11-12T19:15:23Z

I had a largemouth in my 55 gal tank, about 13-14 inches. It was all by itself til I put in a 17 inch smallie one day. The damn smallie killed the largemouth, it was belly-up on the bottom. I had plenty of minnows in there for both. I noticed the smallie hitting the back side of the largemouth, almost like spawning rituals. Well I ended up releasing the smallie in a lake and tossed the largemouth out for the cats. Before I did that I checked them out. The largemouth was a female and the smallie was a male. Oh well, now I just have a saugeye in there…

5 Days Of Great Fishing

2008-11-10T20:43:11Z

I spent Nov. 3-7 on the water with a great friend of mine, and man did we catch them. Monday, we fished Lake Neely Henry. It’s located on the Coosa River in Gadsden, Alabama. We fished banks adjacent to the river channel in the mid-lake area. We caught them on crankbaits, jerkbaits, and finesse worms. We had 17 by the end of the day. They averaged between 1-2 lbs. Tuesday, we fished Guntersville. We targeted points and docks on the main lake. We caught them on jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, Senkos, frogs, and finesse worms. We caught 22 between 1-3.5 lbs. Wednesday, we stayed on Guntersville. The finesse worm brought the most success the day before, so we threw it most of the day. I did get one on a Super Fluke. We finished the day with 29 between 1-3 lbs. Thursday, we went back to Neely Henry. We caught 16 on finesse worms between 1-2 lbs. Friday, we finished our expedition on our home lake, Allatoona. We caught 17 on finesse worms and jigs between 1-3 lbs. The weather was incredible the whole week, with highs in the 70’s. That was a trip to remember.

Lake Lanier Stripers

2008-08-20T18:53:00Z

I got to go fishing with a friend of mine, who is a striper guide. We fished Lake Lanier in northern Georgia this past Saturday. I don’t know that much about striper fishing, so this was a learning experience for me. We trolled bucktail jigs on leadcore line about 20 ft. deep, which is 9 colors out at 3 mph. We stayed just on the edge of the river channel. Lanier is basically a flooded forest, and the fish would come up out of the trees and nail our jigs. In a couple of hours, we boated 4 stripers and 1 spotted bass. I took the stripers home and filleted them. Here are the pics just before they went under the knife.

Windy Day

2008-10-27T19:24:59Z

30 mph winds and a high of 50 degrees. Not exactly ideal conditions, but we headed out on Lake Allatoona to see if we could get bit. We ended up with 15. Most of our fish came on green jigs with matching twin-tail grubs. We caught a few on watermelon finesse worms on a shaky head jig. The fish related to rocky points and steep bluff banks.

That’s the way it goes….

2008-10-27T17:55:03Z

Well a buddy and I fished an open tournament last weekend and had a great time. My partner must have caught 15 - 20 fish but couldn’t get one to make the 16” limit from the lake we were fishing.

I had my limit by 11 am, including one horse over 5lbs. I caught about 15 bass and all but two were close enough to the 16 inch mark that they were put on the board.

Where the weigh-in was the organizers didn’t want a lot of truck/boat traffic since it was outside the marina resteraunt. They wanted every one to pull up to the docks (private so we couldn’t tie up) and carry our fish up the hill.

As I was trying to get my fish out of the livewell one jumped out hit the deck, bounced between my legs and hit the water - GONE!!!!

I quickly closed the lid on the live-well and started laughing. I slowly open the lid up and noticed the horror - IT WAS THE 5+ POUNDER. Now I started crying (not really, but it was upsetting).

In previous years on this tourney anything over 12 pounds usually gets the victory, so I had a feeling my 10 pound bag had a chance to be in the money.

It turns out that 7 teams weighed limits and 4 teams had over 20lbs so even if I had all my fish it wouldn’t have made to cut. Big bass was over 6.5lbs, so I wouldn’t have even won that.

I’ll post some picts of my two other keepers later.

Biggest Bass

2007-08-11T22:47:10Z

I was wonderin what everyone’s biggest bass is and what bait that you caught it on.
My biggest is 7 1/2lbs. and I caught it on a white popp’in scumfrog 2yrs. ago with my dad.
I’ll never forget (until I catch one bigger!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The Chatterbait Works!!!

2008-04-24T22:36:27Z

Today me and a friend went bass fishing in the rain today. I told him it wouldn’t be worth it, but he wanted to go. So i tied on a chatterbait frog thingy i bought. Wow, I’m not kidding, every single cast was either a missed fish, lost fish, or caught a bass. He was throwing a fire tiger rattlin rapala and caught a few. But wow, the chatterbait does work. Just thought i would share as some of you tried them earlier in the year with no success.