Product Review for the ALL NEW 4.8 Swinging Hammer

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Bob (owner of PTL) had called me a few week ago to let me know that the molds had made it to the plastic injector company. All well and good. Don't tell me until they are here. I don't want to get my hopes up.

So, it went into the back of my mind and I didn't think about it.

When I wake up in the morning (about 5:45), the first thing I do is roll over and check my email. My bosses get to work and start emailing the work instructions for the day.

Well, imagine my surprise when I received an email telling me that the Swinging Hammer was in! I jumped up, ran to the living room, got on the laptop, and made an order. I just HAD to have these baits for the SNUFISH Tournament on Saturday.

But...it was Wednesday and I was SWEATING that it would come in......

But it did! And it saved the day! It boosted us from outside the money to 3rd when Josh hung a 4.5 on our last cast! In fact, we threw this bait for the last hour of a cold blue bird sky day and culled several times. Here is a vid from that day as we threw up over 18 pounds. 

Here are the specs from PTL:

"If you're looking to create a serious amount of turbulence in the water, the 4.8" Swinging Hammer was specifically designed to do exactly that.  The oversized paddle tail of the Swinging Hammer creates a massive amount of vibration that calls in big fish from far away. To boot, it's flat belly prevents rolling even at high speeds and it's segmented body creates a delicious side to side body sway from the nose back which just drives fish wild. The 4.8" Swinging Hammer can be fished multiple ways…but no matter how you fish it, be prepared to stick pigs!
Swim it on a weighted swimbait hook in open water or bang it off of cover.
Rig it weightless on a 6/0 EWG for slow surface waking and calling fish out of vegetation below.
Rig 5 on an Alabama rig and create a turbulence like never before.
Stroke it off the bottom on a jig head.
Use it as a trailer on a swim jig or Chatter Bait and bring that lunker to the scales.
Each package of Swinging Hammers comes with a capsule of Hog Tonic inside. Rub some on the baits and add amino acids to make sure those pigs don't let go. "

I have been using this bait for about a year and a half, and it has become a go-to bait for me on multiple lakes. I have a few ways of rigging and retrieving that are a staple of mine. The first is a standard lead head, fishing around damns such as the Guntersville dam on Wheeler or the Wilson dam on Pickwick. It is deadly on small mouth in the current.

Perhaps the most underrated method is weightless on top of grass, such as on Guntersville. During the dog days of summer in 2013, "skitter shadding" became the sole producer of big fish for me. I wold throw it as far as I could, then twitch it back while it sat on grass. The hook up ratio is extremely high and the fish can't stand it. You can also throw this weightless into schooling fish and it is almost automatic. Just toss it out, let it fall, and make a couple of twitches. This technique earned me a 2nd place finish with Big Fish during my clubs Classic on Guntersville. Check out the vid.

Whatcm my product review, which is at the top of this page. If you want to know my favorite attribute to this bait, it's that it swims even as it falls, where as most swimbaits have a stiff tail that won't move as it falls. This doesn't look like a real bait fish. The Swinging Hammer swims as it falls, making it look like a dying bait fish. As a result, most of my catches have been on the fall, either from the cast or from popping it off the bottom.

If you are looking for a extremely versatile swimbait in some awesome colors with a unique action, check out the PowerTeam Lures Swinging Hammer Swimbait and its 12 colors. My all time favorite is Money. But all of the colors are great.

I have caught a ton of fish on this bait. And I have caught them every single way I have rigged them and on every single lake I have used it on. Whether it's lead head, swim jig, A-rig, or weightless, this bait produces fish.

For the best price on the web, check it out on Amazon. Here is the link. 

Fishing Report (with Video) for the 1st Annual SNUFISH on Guntersville 3/16/13

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Go here for the VIDEO!

November seems so long ago. That's when I agreed to help the Sigma Nu fraternity from UAHuntsville to put on a benefit tournament for American Heart Association.

It was a great way for me to represent PowerTeam Lures(I know yall are sick of the plugs...) as a member of their Pro Staff. In fact, it was really the first tournament I had fished, aside from the NATA, which was a hard bait dominated tournament.

Anyway, the date rolled around and...fortunately, I found myself with a free Friday to prefish. If you have read about my other attempts to prefish, you will see that I do little more than eliminate water, much less get on a pattern.

But...I did. And while I don't have a post of it....yet....let me assure you that I stumbled upon a pattern that I was pretty sure we wouldn't see used for another few months. I was sure, however, that the Bama Rig would be tossed all over the lake, so I had ruled it out.

Anyway, to save some time, I fished Friday with Jon and we put up 25 pounds including a 6 pound bucket head on the last cast.

So, when I called Josh and told him that I had filled out a limit mostly on rattlebaits, he wasn't surprised. When I told him that I culled up 2-3 times with a PowerTeam 6" Gator....he was a little taken aback. And why not? Sure, a lizard type bait is a staple in spawn, post spawn and summer patterns. But not in March.

Now. The Gator ISN'T a standard lizard, like you would see from Zoom. See the ridges on the tail? That gives it a "thump" in the water. The ridges make it stiffer, so it doesn't just twirl around. It paddles. Also, the legs are backwards from most other baits. I also like the very realistic bumps on it's back and the rib cage-like side profile.

Anyway, that was our plan. Rattle baits in the morning, Gators in the afternoon.

We also knew that the Alabama Highschool tournament was also going to be out of state park and they were expecting 250++ boats. Plus any other tournaments. So, we decided it wise to put in at Seibold and motor over. Boy, was that a smart decision! Props to Josh for thinking of it!

So, we arrived at Seibold and there wasn't another trailer in the lot. We motored across. And man, the road that circles the mountain below the State Park looked like a fireworm. It snaked back and forth...truck-trailor-truck. And it was PACKED at the docks.

We found Jared, the gentleman running the show. I dropped off some PTL Giftcards that PTL had graciously donated, as well as some baits that I provided out of my own pocket.

And....we were off.

We fished the Seibold area, starting where Jon and I fished the morning before where I caught a 4.5 and several 3 pound fish early. I threw the rattlebait while Josh threw a Bama rig, mostly. After a while, he picked up a rattle bait and tossed it. Yo-Yo'd it. Picked up a fish and slammed the rod home....just to break the line....NOT the way to start!

A few minutes later, we headed to where I had caught the 6 the previous day. We put the boat in 12 foot of water and threw to 8 feet. I decided that the Gator had worked there 16 hours ago...maybe it would work again.

And so it did. I had a solid THUMP and I hammered it. I fought it for a second and had almost given up on it being a solid fish until it pulled back. And I quickly yelled at Josh to GET THE NETTTTTTTTT!!!!

I tell ya. I am throwing this new St. Croix Triumph rod in Medium Fast with the new Skeet Reese reel. And that rod is deceptive. It makes big fish feel small and small fish feel big!

Anyway, boated it and we were off! It was a 5+ fish. THAT'S the way to start the day!

Josh immediately picked up his lizard bait and started throwing it....right after he let me douse it in Hog Tonic.

Now, I am not hard core about scents. But, I believe they are very useful in cold muddy water, which was what we were fishing.  He was throwing a Zoom in an almost identical color as I. He quickly picked up keeper #2. So, we figured  that the lizard was the way to go.

That was sort of correct. After we moved to a new place, I quickly picked up fish 3 and 4. A non-keeper. And it was 5:1 PTL vs Zoom. We made a deal that if I caught another one, he would swap. So, I did. And while it didn't measure, it proved a point. So, I gave him one of the Gators.

Quick aside...I was Facebooking the whole day, updating when we caught our keepers...etc. So, when he swapped, I made a status up date. I was finishing up when he made his first cast....and caught keeper #5! It was HILARIOUS! And Lord strike me dead if I am lying. It was a RIOT!

We quickly found out that we could go anywhere that had 12 feet adjacent to 7 feet with grass and catch fish. So, we started hopping around. But, the 3-4 foot waves made it impossible to run to places that we knew. So, we started fishing new places around Seibold. Each new place yielded a fish or two. And while we did catch 3-4 fish an hour, the size started to plummet. It got to where we were only catching dinks.

We were sitting around 16 pounds. We hadn't culled up in a long time. And the bites were coming slower. So, Josh picked up the brand new Swinging Hammer from PTL. If you didn't know, this bait came out Wednesday. Which is when I ordered. I received them Friday night. SO, unless you went to PTL and bought them, you couldn't get them faster than I.  But, I hadn't caught any fish on it. Heck. I hadn't thrown it!

But Josh went out on a limb and started chunking it. It took maybe 5 minutes. He caught one that was a small upgrade. Then on the next cast, he caught another. It didn't help, but it sure gave us the sign. So, I picked mine up and threw it. 1st cast...no lie. Caught a fish. Again, no help...but we caught 5 fish in 5 minutes.

Again, numbers are great, but they don't win tournaments. We were hurting for another good fish.

We tried a new place that I had heard about and while he threw the Swinging Hammer, I picked up the Gator again..since it seemed to produce bigger fish. And, 2pm the day before was win I caught the big one. We also noticed that the bigger fish came out of 10-12 feet instead of 8-10 feet.

So, when we got into an area that was 12 feet deep with grass, I thought I had a good chance at a big cull.

I was dragging it on the bottom when one THUMPED it. If you don't know...little fish do the "tap tap tap", which is them chomping on a bait to make it fit in their mouth. A quality fish doesn't do that. It opens its mouth and inhales the bait.

I leaned back on the fish. It leaned back into me. And broke the line. I won't speculate on how big it was. It doesn't matter.

I was destroyed. There is no getting over that.

3pm rolled around. Then 3:30. Then 3:45. I wrapped my rods and sat down. I was done. If 16 pounds wasn't enough....oh well.

Josh made 1 more cast with the  PowerTeam Lures Swinging Hammer. A fish destroyed it. Initially we thought it would be another dink...but when it jumped, we knew it was a cull up fish. I dipped it and we had boated a 4.5 pounder that culled up a 2 pounder. That's a heck of a cull!

We ran back to the ramp where we discovered that the day had been extremely difficult for most everyone. In fact, only about 5 boats weighed in a limit. We weighed in right at 19 pounds. That was good enough for 3rd place. It took 23 pounds to win and 21 for 2nd. Big fish was about 6.5 pounds.

Jim, whom you may remember from some of my videos, and his 2 other friends were the boat to win. I know that sounds funny, but this tournament allowed you to fish 3 to a boat. Which is different and kinda cool. Maybe we should have done that! HAHA!

Anyway. We ended up catching 25 fish or so. Many of those were good fish. But, the majority were buck bass that were prestaging. I have an inclination that the females are still in 12 feet. All but 1 fish were caught on PTL baits. Most of those were on the gator.

As you can see, we got good videos...though the GoPro shows its bad side again. The GoPros are really bad about shutting on and off at odd times....and that stinks when you are expecting to have video of 20 or so fish and you have video of 5. Oh well.


Quick note...almost forgot! I took care of myself this weekend and stayed covered up. Skin cancer runs in my family. But...the one thing I didn't cover up.....

Enjoy!

Best5Zach Presents: TJ on Tail of the Dragon

When TJ called and said he wanted to hit The Tail of the Dragon this weekend...I couldn't WAIT to get some footage. He did a terrific job and he and his group only destroyed 1 bike in the process. No one was hurt, luckily.

He got over 3 hours of incredible footage which made it so hard to pick out what to use. I had to keep it short enough to keep people's attention, yet give an honest account of everything the Dragon has to offer. I hope I did a good job. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmQhDyiBFpQ&feature=youtu.be 

Product Review for Mystery Tackle Box, March Edition

It's funny. Just yesterday I saw a picture and a post from MTB saying how they were ready to ship out the March Edition MTBs.

They truly understand how fishermen get all worked up over things. Because I was sooo excited they were shipping them...and then I get home and it was waiting on me! They played me....in a good way!

I held off allllll night to do a this review. Didn't rip it open. I had to wait until the baby was in bed so I could do it relative peace and quiet. I even enlisted some special help!

This month features baits from Strike King, Whip 'Em Baits, Yo Zuri, and Big Bite Baits.

So, check out the vid!

Best5Zach Refer a Friend Contest

I'm feelin' froggy. Let's have a contest to give away a few packs of my favorite PowerTeam Lures baits.

Right out of my own pocket.

Go get a friend to "like" my Facebook page or subscribe to the blog. Have them Inbox me(here or the FB) to tell me who refered them. If you are the 13th person to refer, you will both get a pack of my favorite PTL baits.

That's not all!  Let's kick it up a notch. If you can guess what bait I will send, I will DOUBLE the order to your doorstep!

If you can guess the color,  I will triple it! 

One guess per person! But you get a guess for every person you refer! If you get a person to subscribe to both, you get two guesses!

Family Fishing on Wheeler Lake 3/10/13

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For those that want to hop right to the video...here it is!

Well, it's finally lunch time here at the office. It was hard to wait all morning to be able to share our weekend with you!

Saturday was a PACKED day for us. We had softball practice for Aubree at 9am and we had a great up-tempo practice. I am so glad that MPRA (our local league) brought in some experts to have a coaches clinic. Because of their assistance, we are able to break up the girls into several groups and provide high- rep drills. It's all due to my fantastic parents that volunteer whenever I ask.

After that, Alyse and I had softball practice for our Sunday night league for the spring. It wasn't nearly as exciting...haha.

And then...we went to our good friends, the Smiths, for a home made pizza dinner featuring a cauliflour crust Greek pizza. It was REALLY good, despite being a skeptic.(I stole this picture from my wife...)

I had been holding a surprise for the kids in my back pocket for a few days and had been watching the weather. They have been asking....no, begging....to go fishing. And the local Publix Land Trust Pond wasn't going to cut it. No. They wanted me to take them out on the "fast boat". A little aside...it's funny that they call it the "fast boat", because it's anything but. Its sllllooooowwwwwww.

Anyway, the weather looked good. Well, the temperature anyway. But, the Accuweather app said there would be a wind advisory. Yep, 15-17mph from the SSE. I decided  to wait it out until after Church and see what happened to the forecast. After all, this is Alabama weather.

But, after services, the predicted weather looked the same. High Winds, but gorgeous otherwise. All I needed was to make sure the big motor would start when I needed it to....and the trolling motor batteries would hold up. I figured I would also stick to fishing in tributaries, since that might protect us.

Went to get the boat and I decided to make sure the motor would fire up. I have been so fortuanate to have such good friends that fish, that I haven't had to take my boat out but twice this whole winter. And old carburated motors don't like to sit. After spending easily 20 minutes looking for the rabbit ears to put on the motor, I was able to fire the motor up easily. Good. Half the battle, right?

Dad had the batteries hooked up to the trolling batteries, but I had suspicions that one of the two AND our space deep cycle we dead or dying. So, I decided to stand on the trolling motor and see what happens. Yep. Dead. Not from lack of charging. Just simple. D-E-A-D.  Dead.

Sigh. I was JUST about to tell the kids that it wasn't a good day to fish and it certainly wasn't worth me spening another $100 on top of gas. Obviosuly, it also wasn't worth taking the risk of getting blown to Decatur. But, as I went to tell them, I could hear Aubree and Griffin talking in the car. All I could hear were exclimations and excitement.

So, I did what I had to.

I went into the parts store on the way and dropped a Benji on a new battery.

We headed towards Triana. Not my favorite place to fish on Wheeler Lake, butthe closest ramp to any creeks. Plus, I just KNEW the white bass were stacked up on the mouth of the creek.

As I prepped the boat to launch, I pulled the old batter out to install the new one. But the crossover cable broke. The wire pulled out of the terminal and couldn't be put back on. GGREEEAATTT.

I looked around the boat hoping  that I had some way of rigging it. I finally settled my eyes on the spare set of jumper cables. Boom. Solution found.

We dunked the boat and headed towards the white bass. But, the Hummingbird wasn't finding any fish. I could find 1 or 2 here or there, but no big wads. I decided to fish it anyway. But before I could cut the motor and drop the trolling motor, the ripping current had taken us 100 yards downstream.

Forget that. I thought. I decided to run us just up river to the NASA barge ties. I am sure you all have read about me fishing them.

Griffin just HAD to drive!

 We made the short run and I kept is in position to fish the points of the square cut in. Nothing. I was tossing a Strike Kind 6XD around and covering water, while fighting the wind which was blowing us back towards the channel. 

 Snagged a good fish while bumping it off the bottom. But it wasn't near any structure that I normally fish. it was out by a barge pylon in the middle of the cut in. I made another cast and caught another one. But, it was impossible to stay in the same spot. Alyse recommended that we pull up to the pylon and tie off. She's such a smart cookie. So, we did. Got ourselves out of the wind and stable. And, luckily enough...right on top of the fish!

We were able to catch and catch! We were extremely fortunate to get the kids involved as well!

But, after a while, I was bored of it. With the Thursday Night Wildcat tournaments starting this week, and Josh's renewal of competitive spirit to donate to them, I decided to check out some spots I had heard about. So, we ran around the lake a little bit. The kids didn't care. Heck, they LOVED it.

As it was getting time to call it quits, we headed back to the ramp. But, never having fishing the Triana branch, I decided to head to the back and see what was back there. We saw some really cool things like old pumphouses and even some blown up dams.

Since there was no current and the wind had laid down, I was finally able to slow down and throw some PowerTeam stuff. I rigged up a Texas Rig Jig in Blue Black on a Strike King Bitzy Bug

And since the water was cold and muddy, I hit it with some Hog Tonic. MAN that stuff stinks and it lasts forever!

This creek is like most creeks on wheeler. Lots of laydowns and stuff that looks great, but it doesn't hold fish. At least, not for me. But, as we passed this old pumphouse, I noticed that the clay banks transitioned to a rocky bank with busted concrete around it. I made the comment to Alyse about how the pros would say that THIS would be the magic spit of land among the hundreds of yards of similar but unproducing banks. Didn't take long to pay off as Aubree snagged herself a little largemouth that was just her size!

That was the perfect time to quit! Quit on a High Note!

MudSlam 2013 at The Great American Park

MudSlam 2013

It's the best event of the spring. MudSlam is packed with offroad action for mud trucks, rock crawlers, and ATVs. Join us March 22-23 at the Great American Park for a weekend filled with mud riding, rock crawling, ATV trails, camping, and the best time you'll ever have with friends and family! Park will open at 4:00 PM on Friday and close at noon on Sunday. There will be no new admittance on Sunday for riding.

You know, way back when, I was an avid drag racer. I still love cars, but I just can't get back into the sport. Off-Roading is something that one of my best friends, Kevin, is into. He lives in Auburn, and Auburn is home to some great off-roading. In fact, one of the big upstart off-road business, Busted Knuckle Films, was started by some guys I went to High School with. They have been VERY successful and now I hope to see them in action.

Man. Am I excited. Off-Roading is something that I have REALLY wanted to get in to. The last few times I have been to Auburn, my best friend and I have done a little ourselves....though we aren't very good. We are..in fact....

I have nearly been run over...

I have seen good beer wasted!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=I17tqrKL8Xo

But, practice makes perfect!

So, Kevin has been on me about visiting his family. When I saw that MudSlam was coming up, I saw it as a great opportunity to get into the sport. So.....we are going. And hopefully participating!

You can find the info on MudSlam on the Great American Park website. You can find a direct link here.