Seeing those hula poppers in the antique lure thread brings back memories! I've caught hundreds of bass with hula poppers, and think they are one of the best and most exciting topwater plugs to use. But out of all the bass I've caught, I don't think I've ever landed one over 6 pounds. My younger brother, on the other hand, is one of those fellas that just always has the luck. For instance, he won a month-long trout tournament when we lived on Jekyll Island with a 4 pound trout. Every year a trout of at least 6 pounds had won it, but the one year he enters a trout, he not only wins the 12-and-under division, but the whole dang tourney. Then three days after the tourney ended, I caught a 6.5 pounder!
Anyway, as for bass stories, here's one about my brother's best bass:
We moved from Jekyll Island, GA to Lake City, FL the summer I was to turn 14, and we were staying in the Holiday Inn, waiting for the house my parents bought to become vacant. Dad had been working there for a few months and had found a small lake over towards Live Oak with great bass fishing.
We bought a 12' jon boat and went over there one Friday evening in late June. I had the only hula popper in my tackle box, and used it to catch 6 bass in the 3-4 lb. class. My 11 year old brother caught one small bass on a jitterbug, his first keeper largemouth. Dad didn't fish, just paddled us along the shore as we cast to the lilypads and stumps. We decided to come back the next morning and try again.
We went to KMart that night to get some more lures, and bought a couple of imitation hula poppers cause they were out of the real ones. The next morning, just after sunup, we were on the lake fishing again. Within an hour I had caught 3 more good bass, my brother nothing (he missed several strikes). We saw some big ones rolling around, and wanted to try to get one of them on. We were using some little cheap South Bend spinning outfits with 8lb mono on 5 foot fiberglass rods. My brother cast up near this log with his imitation hula popper and WHAM! the lake opened up and thebiggest bass I'd ever seen was on his line! He fought her well, and she came rolling up to the boat a few minutes later. You could tell she had been laying eggs and was tuckered out, but still had a few to go. We fished about 30 more minutes, then took her up to a nearby meat market, and they weighed her on their scale - exactly 12 pounds! My brother's second bass, and it's still the biggest any in our family has caught! Dad had it mounted, and the guy did a beautiful job. The paint job was really lifelike and the prep work was outstanding. Still one of the best looking bass mounts I've ever seen, and the thing is now 31 years old!
8.5 LMB. Me and the next door neighbor (whom i dont talkto anymore) wre fishing at one of my spots. Ok he has allways thought he was the king cause he caught a 7lb lmb.. He allways raved about it and so on.. So one day we were fishing and this guy walks up to us and starts talking.. now at the current time the biggest i ever caught was a 6 lb lmb. So he pulls in a 7 lber. and im like its cool man.. good job! he looks at me and says "your just mad cause this is a bigger lmb then you ever caught in your life!". I look at him and say hey man. Dont ever talk down to me like that in front of people who we dont know. And he just stays quiet and son on. So after a week of so he tells me how i shouldnt of been a ass to him and say that stuff.. I was like whatever dont talk down to me ever man. bottom line.. ok so we were fishing about 3 weeks later. He knew that he needs to keep that record cause he runs his mouth so freakin much.. So we are fishing and BAM.. i get hit and my drag goes all the way out... I see this huge splash.. Im like "OH YEA THIS IS THE BIG ONE!!!". Right off the bat he already looks mad. So i pull this HUGE BASS up to the bank and as im pulling it up it gets off the rattle trap and starts rolling back down the bank to the water.. Hes smiling because we have this rule. "if you dont bring it up to the bank and have control of it it dont count" and "if you dont weigh it for us both to see or take a picture of it weighed its just hear say" These rules were made up for him cause he was so thinking he was bill dance and had the biggest bass and was the best bass fisherman ever, and hes better then me, and hes the king and bla bla bla..
So i jump in the water and grab it and pull it back up to land and weigh it.. 8llbs 5oz.. he was even fighting with me sayint it was 4oz.. God im glad im not his friend any more.
heres the pics!
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Nice fish, good color! It has a big head, like the one my bro' caught. I bet when my brother's was full of eggs she would have went 16+. We saw several in the lake that were bigger than her, but couldn't get into them.
The biggest lmb I caught was just over 6lbs and wasn't really pretty. It came out of a phosphate pit south of Mulberry and was pale greenish-brown compared to most lake bass. But it fought like it was much bigger! He hit a plastic worm and took drag off my Shimano baitcaster like a freight train! I need to do some more bass fishing, haven't been in a LOOOOOOOOONG time!
My biggest is 10lb4oz. I caught it July 4th weekend 2004 on a horny toad at 10:30AM. I kept her in the freezer and finally ended up throwing it away after a couple years. I never had the money to get it mounted. I don't even have a picture of it. My sister took some pics that day and they were on my old computer before it crashed and lost everything att he time
