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Hey y’all – hope you’ve been whackin’ a bunch of slabs and had a fun and safe 4th of July!

Got a cool one for you this week! Some summertime fishing juice, new fire baits, to the LiveScope transducer we've all been curious to see! Let's get into it!

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Bobby Garland's new Slab Stalk'R and Head Lock'R 👀

Got some new 🧃-y baits coming in from Bobby Garland! I'm pretty excited about both of these – especially those screw-lock jigheads. After fishing with a couple of Bobby Garland pros – Kayle Ward and Jerry Hancock – both of those guys were big screw-lock fans and put me onto it, so I was hoping for something like this!

The cool swimbaits are the Slab Stalk'R and jigheads are the Head Lock'R jigheads.

I got on the phone with Bobby Garland's Skylar St. Yves to get the deets on the new gear.

The Slab Stalk'R

> "We wanted something versatile as a swimming bait, as opposed to something you just cast and retrieve or troll.

> "From a forward-facing sonar perspective [FFS], or for people who are a little bit more technical with soft-plastic baits in a vertical situation, we wanted a bait that could be fished like a Baby Shad – minimal working – and still get that tail to move well.

> "That's where the tail design came from. If you were going to vertically fish on LiveScope, could you still use this bait effectively? To this point, the answer is yes, absolutely.

> "With a balanced jighead, or if you put it on a regular jighead with a loop knot, the bait is compact enough that it's going to sit naturally horizontal in the water column."

Why not make it a big thumping swimbait?

> "It's designed to be fished at a really slow speed and still get tail action that's not erratic. It keeps [the action] nice and tight, just like a minnow or shad in a natural state.

> "Years and years of fishing experience and underwater research of these fish showed that the less tail action the better. It keeps a really natural signature coming off that bait no matter what speed it's being retrieved at."

A couple more deals – Skylar said that on top of his best FFS pro-staff guys doing real good with it long-poling and casting, he said that it's been pretty killer for dock-shooting since it's got a slower straight fall and not an unnatural "death spiral".

Also, it comes in 24 colors with 1 exclusive color to the bait – 'easy money'.

The Head Lock'R

> "There are a lot of crappie anglers using some style of screw-lock head, but there's no widely available panfish-specific head with the right hook size, head size and screw-lock keeper for panfish soft plastics.

> "Guys love the balanced head that we have, so we started there. Can we get crappie-sized hooks and heads with this balanced head, then add a screw-lock to make it functional?

> "On smaller sizes where you could maybe get an Itty Bit or a more slender bait on, it would blow the sidewalls out when you were trying to get it on there.

> "The other complaint was that it takes way too many twists to get them on there – guys were having to use 7, 8, 9, sometimes 10 or 11 twists to get it flush."

The heads now have 2 screw rotations that Skylar said take only 4-5 turns to get the bait on. Heads come in 1/8, 1/16 and 1/24-oz with #6 hooks and a #2 hook on the 1/8-oz heads.

They come in 3 colors – mo' glo 'chartreuse', 'ghost' and 'pink' – and unpainted.

Right now, the Slab Stalk'R is only for sale at Lurenet.com – but the Head Lock'R is already on Tackle Warehouse.

Garmin launched the new LiveScope 2

Here we go! Can be tough to get a good idea of sonar stuff without seeing it and experiencing it in person (which will happen at ICAST), but this seems pretty straightforward. Here's some deets:

> Improved noise reduction and expanded/broader sonar coverage – wider sonar angles improve coverage in all 3 modes: Forward, Down and Perspective

> Clearer target separation at both short and long ranges

> Integrated image stabilization, reduced noise and better target separation

> Faster processing speed and low latency

> No more black box

3 new transducers but 1 is for ice fishing so not mentioned here:

> LiveScope 2 (LVS44) builds on the proven technology of LiveScope Plus [LVS34] and delivers 20% more resolution and 25% more range – out to 250' – for anglers who want to cover more water and find fish farther from the boat.

> LiveScope 2 HD (LVS42HD) is optimized for castable distances out to 125' with Garmin's clearest live sonar ever, offering 50% more detail at closer ranges compared to the previous model.

> ...LiveScope 2 and LiveScope 2 HD transducers connect directly to a compatible Garmin multi-function display (MFD) and power source, eliminating the need for a black box and simplifying installation.

> Integrated sensors enhance usability, including the built-in water sensor, which automatically turns off the sonar when the transducer gets lifted out of the water....

> ...onboard water temperature sensor for accurate readings.

> ...come with a trolling motor barrel mount and adjustable Perspective mode mount so the transducers can be easily adjusted to fit an angler's fishing techniques and preferences on the water, no tools required.

More info

1. Garmin units/screens this LS2 is compatible with:

ECHOMAP Ultra

ECHOMAP Ultra 2

ECHOMAP UHD2

GPSMAP 700/700xsv/900/900xsv

GPSMAP 9000/9000xsv

GPSMAP 8400/8400xsv/8600/8600xsv

GPSMAP 16x3/16x3xsv

GPSMAP 15x3xsv

GPSMAP 12x3/12x3xsv

Basically the full ECHOMAP and GPSMAP product lines including some discontinued models. Here's a link to the full list.

2. It will be available at retail as soon as electronics folks get it on their sites/in their stores – and will be for sale on Garmin.com here on Friday. MSRP is $1,999.99 - $2,199.99.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1908376/pn/010-03899-00/#devices

3. The LVS42HD and LVS44 trannies look similar but are not the exact same – the LVS44 (right) is bigger and has a little bump-out on the back.

Also, pretty good video here from NBT Marine and Aussie angler Byron Hill explaining the beams of the 42HD vs 44 and how the 44 could be the deal for crappie guys.

Polymer 'ducer mount gets rid of ghost trees?

Leave it too the crappie guys to figure out the cool LiveScope stuff for the rest of the fishing world! 😉

Don't have a pic of it and can't find where to order it since I guess it's sorta in the proto/pilot stage, but check out this Facebook post by MS crappie guide Jason Clements where he says this (here's the video):

> The Ultimate LiveScope Breakthrough: Goodbye bottom fill and heavy returns and ghost tree!

[Here's some ghost trees – that sorta arc that's always there.]

> As a pro crappie fisherman and guide, my gear takes an absolute beating. If you've ever fished Grenada Lake, you know what 3-4' rollers at 58 mph will do to your boat and your electronics mounts.

> After constantly breaking expensive mounts on guide trips, I got fed up and decided to engineer my own solution. But during testing, we accidentally stumbled onto something way bigger than just a tougher mount. We completely eliminated the LiveScope ghost tree and cleared up our bottom returns.

> Check out this video. Look at the 6' water return—zero phantom lines, zero bottom fill, and you can actually see the full body and direction of the fish on the bottom.

> Why does this screen look so much better than yours? Because almost every commercial mount on the market is made of machined anodized aluminum. Metal acts as a massive electrical conductor.

> If there is any stray voltage or bad grounding in your boat's 12V system, that aluminum mount feeds that electrical noise straight into your Garmin transducer body. It ruins your picture, and you end up wasting thousands trying to fix it with ground wires and extra batteries.

> I designed the True Sight Mount by Angler Precision Mounts out of an ultra-rugged, weather-proof engineering polymer (ASA) instead of metal. It acts as a complete electrical insulator, blocking stray noise at the source while maintaining a true zero-degree straight-down view and seamless perspective capability.

> We ran this prototype through the worst rollers Grenada could throw at us in our Z20, and it barely even shook. It's tough, it's lightweight, and it clears up your screen mechanically.

> This design is officially patent pending. I'm getting ready to run a very limited introductory "Pro-Staff Field Test" batch for local guides and tournament anglers who want a cleaner screen before the fall bite kicks off.

We got on the phone with Jason last minute and here's a few things he added:

> "You can see them swimming.... You normally see their backs and [then] they disappear [on the bottom], but [with this mount] you can go all the way in the mud and you can still see them."

Also said he keeps his LiveScope settings the same and that Angler Precision Mounts is his company, he's making them and the only way to get them is through his Facebook page.

I'm definitely not an expert on all the sonars, but I believe the ghost tree happens with Garmin LiveScope (maybe not the new LS2) and Lowrance ActiveTarget.

I think Humminbird took care of that issue with MEGA Live 2.

How Petty and Boone won the Ultimate Crappie Challenge

Pretty cool big tournament went down on Reelfoot Lake, TN as part of the Bill Dance Signature Lakes deal. Bill Dance threw a 2-day crappie derb for a $10K grand prize and Kentucky Lake guides and recent Crappie Masters winners Chase Petty and Max Boone took home the hardware. 

Reelfoot is Chase's home pond and he said he's fished every inch of it. He also said the way that lake is laid out – shallow, swampy – that there are good fish everywhere, but "it takes a lifetime" to find the honey holes. 

Got on the phone with Chase to get the winning deets and how he literally hid from the competition. 😂

1. How did you find your fish in practice?

> "I actually tried to stay off the lake because I knew everybody would be looking for me.

[Of the 4 days he practiced, he only fished for 8 hrs 1 day and then less than a combined 8 hrs the next 3.]

> "Reelfoot has a deeper south end where there are fish in like 10-15' of water, then you have what I call the swamp areas where the water is only 4-5' deep. Everybody knows about those deeper areas.

> "There were definitely little pods of bigger fish in there, but the pods moved gradually. I knew from guiding that lake a lot, it wasn't going to be trustworthy.

> "I'd ease out there at daylight, check a spot and then ease off. I was trying to stay hidden because I knew where I'd found some winning fish on the first day of practice, and I knew nobody was going to find them.

> "There was a little local tournament there the weekend before, and 4 of the top 5 were fishing in one of the spots. I knew they had big fish but I knew everybody else was going to go there too.

> "All I really had to do was see where the pressure was during the tournament. Where there wasn't pressure was where the fish were going to be because they're not used to that pressure."

2. What was special about those shallow areas?

> "People weren't seeing the fish as easily. I found fish on bigger topped-out stumps in the middle and shallower end of the lake. 

> "Anything where there was a big piece of timber and a fish sitting right on the bottom was what I focused on. I knew nobody was going to pressure those fish as much.

> "The stumps had to have some hollowness to them. A lot of them were rotted out and had little indentations or holes on the outside. Some of them were plain hollow.

> "If it were just a big stump with no rottenness, and it looked like you took a chainsaw and cut it off, those wouldn't have fish. They had to have some type of old, torn-up, stake-bed-looking stump where they could get up inside it.

3. How did those areas play out in the tournament?

> "I started where the biggest fish on the lake were. There were about 20 other boats that started there also. That was where the little local tournament was won – people were talking, people found them.

> "The winning fish were definitely right there where everybody was, but they were going to get so pressured and beat up that it played into my hand even more [because he had other good areas].

> "I got right in among them and fished as much as I could for about 2-3 hours. I was able to catch 3 of my fish there on day 1, until it got to where you couldn't even get within 40-50' of the fish [before they spooked off].

> "At 10 or 11:00 [each day], I got away from everybody, snuck through the ditches and canals and went to where I ended up winning the tournament – I got up there and didn't see a boat for miles. Nobody was there."

When Chase said he was sneaking through the canals to get to his fish, all I could think of was that the crappie saw him coming through there like those folks saw the SEALS coming in Act of Valor:

4. How were you getting those hard-to-see fish to bite?

> "You really couldn't see the size of them. The cover was just too thick."

> "Those stumps were hard to see, and the fish would be right on the bottom. Sometimes I knew there was a fish there, but I wouldn't know if it was a catfish or drum. There was lots of trash too.

> "I'd drop my jig down there and wait for the fish's reaction. You could tell pretty quick once you got the reaction and got them to come up off the bottom whether it was a crappie.

> "I used an all-natural little 1.5-inch [ATX] Wicked Shad. I would tip it with a minnow if I couldn't get one to bite, but other than that, it was simple."

Chase's gear

> "I was using a 13' [Power Fishing] Triton, 10-lb line, a 1/16-oz ATX unpainted tungsten head and a 1.5-inch ATX Wicked Shad in 'Petty pearl' [a signature color of Chase's]. That's pretty much all I used all week.

> "I used a 13-footer, just something really light in my hand and real snappy for the hookset.

> "It was summertime, and the bite was good, but they weren't just thumping and eating it. You had to snap your wrists, and the smaller rod allowed you to get a better hookset."

Hot water hot take

So apparently when the water gets boiling, we need to actually fish SHALLOWER?

After our tourney convo, I asked Chase what the biggest mistake he sees folks make in the summertime when it gets super hot – i.e., Jul and Aug weather.

I figured he'd say something about baits or fishing too slow or something, but I got out the notepad when he started talking about this 😅:

> "Everybody thinks hotter months mean crappie go deep, but that's really not the case.

> "The thing I hear the most when guiding is, 'We're going to fish deep water, deep water, deep water'. There are fish that stage in deep water, of course, but if a thermocline sets in, you can't fish deep water.

> "I catch more fish shallow this time of year than I do in the springtime because they're just trying to find oxygen and food. They're in survival mode, especially when the water gets 85-plus.

> "Temperature doesn't really drive [crappie behavior] as long as they have good oxygen. A thermocline might set in around 15' and go all the way up to 4-5'. If you get in 4-5' of water, there's no thermocline where those fish are.

> "There are fish deep on river channels where there's no thermocline, or on deep stumps when the current is flowing a little bit. But I think shallow water gets overlooked because people think shallow is only a spring deal. A lot of shallow fish don't get pressured in the summertime."

1. Check out the new BoneHead Tackle ICAST colors

5 new colors in all BoneHead plastics! Looks like they're already available so go check 'em out here on the BoneHead site!

2. Are you injecting your baits with scent?

Cool deal from BaitFuel – the Scent Injector Kit – where you actually use a needle to inject your baits with the BaitFuel formula instead of applying it to the outside. The kit comes with the injector tool and 4 scent capsules. Check it out here on Tackle Warehouse!

You can also get the scent capsule refills here on Tackle Warehouse.

3. AR: Crappie being "slayed" on...

> Lake Ouachita: "We are still slaying the slab crappie in the 14' range. No little ones. Start early, like 5:30, and finish by mid-morning."

4. OK: Crappie bite going down on...

> Bell Cow: Crappie good on jigs, minnows and small lures around brush and standing timber.

> Chandler: Crappie good on jigs, minnows and small lures around brush and the dam.

> Kaw: White bass and crappie good on hair jigs, jigs and minnows below the dam.

> Broken Bow: Crappie good on hair jigs, jigs, minnows, small lures and spoons around brush, points and standing timber.

> Eufaula: Crappie excellent on hair jigs, inline spinnerbaits, jigs, live shad and minnows around brush, coves, docks, points, shorelines and standing timber. Daily limit of black and white crappie combined has been changed to 20.

> Robert S. Kerr: Crappie good on jigs and minnows around creek channels, flats and the inlet.

> Wister: Crappie good on jigs and minnows around brush.

5. ID: Crappie population "better than before" on Moose Creek Rez

DNR had to draw the water level way down to get rid of invasive pondweed.

6. New shallow spool HyperMag spin reel from Lews

3000-size reel with a shallow spool and faster 7.0:1 gear ratio to pick up line fast. The whole deal is made for long casts, fast line management...but I'm thinking of dock shooting with that line coming off the spool easier and being able to pick up on it faster. 👀

Check it out here on the Lew's site.

7. Fitzgerald getting into the crappie rod game

Fitzgerald Fishing just launched its new Vursa Crappie & Panfish Series, a 7-rod lineup covering casting 6' to 16'. Not out yet but will MSRP is $129.99. More info on 'em next week at ICAST!

8. CA: Initial efforts to get boating back on Irvine

Fish the shade of a ledge

Here's a pretty cool tip from MS guide Brad Chappell from last night's Crappie Connection pod talkin' how to use the sun to your advantage to find the best spots throughout the day:


> "Old-school guys before LiveScope – they always knew to fish the shady side, and that's where they caught the fish.

> "With FFS now, we can actually see these fish move and how they adjust to the sunlight during the day. Starting out in the morning, the sun's coming up on the east and all these fish are really positioned on the west side [of ledges and cover].

> "So a big thing that I'm focusing on is [also] trying to focus on areas that have shallow on the east, deep on the west – they're getting on that shady deeper side."

"What’s really cool about this bait is it’s made out of the ElaZtech material. You can catch 100, 200 or 300 fish probably on one bait."

I think I'll need me a couple packs then! 😃 That's Bassmaster pro and crappie addict Brandon Lester talking about the Z-Man Baby BallerZ in one of his recent YouTube videos.

He said he's been using the 'purple death' color because the bluegill just got done spawning in his area and that color imitates juvenile bluegill. Check out those Baby BallerZ here on Tackle Warehouse.

If you're unfamiliar, all of the Z-Man crappie baits are made from that ElaZtech that stretches a mile and is super durable, hence being able to catch all the fish.

That ElaZtech floats too, but Z-Man just came out with some sinking ElaZtech bassin' baits...maybe we'll see some crappie baits coming down the pipe? 👀

How about a new MN state record bluegill! That thing is so big it's got a forehead on its forehead! 🤣

That's Dale Hoffman with his new certified 2.21-lb record (previous record was 2-0) caught on a bobber and redworms on Big Stone Lake, and it's the second state record caught there in 3 weeks! Congrats Dale!

📸: In-Fisherman

National Professional Anglers Assoc.

MN-FISH