TTZ Goes Grande!

Posted: 8/24/2010

TTZ is proud to announce a new partnership; Jerry Shinn’s GrandeBass will become a primary partner with TTZ, and we look forward to a long relationship. Brian Booker and Robby Crabb, who fished as pro staff members with Jerry for a few years, were very familiar with the product and the owner of the company. Brian shares his thoughts.

“I’m jacked up about it. Since we’ve started TTZ we have had Grande on our short list, because we only associate with quality people and products. Jerry’s a great guy. He really listens to his pro staffers, and brings a lot to the table because he fishes himself. He has an exceptional eye for color and design. More importantly, I don’t know what the hell is in that Mega3 Juice he uses, but it works…I’ve never seen anything like it! Even I can catch fish with his baits. Who can say at this point that they haven’t caught a fish on a RattleSnake? It has become a staple in any tournament fisherman’s box.”

Robby adds, “Fishing is my passion and Grande is what is in my boat! I’m really excited about teaming up with Grande, Jerry produces some of the best baits on the market and his passion for the sport shows through in his product. I think I can speak for the whole TTZ team in saying we are looking forward to this relationship and spreading the Grande brand.”

GrandeBass came on the scene a few years ago, but quickly acquired a reputation for catching fish. Since then, almost every major outdoor store including Academy, Cabela’s and Gander Mountain carries the product line. The RattleSnake, Honcho and Mutant are well known, but very recently Grande added a couple of new looks to the arsenal. The addition of the MegaTail RattleSnake is something we should all be very excited about. What happens when you take the proven fish catching ability of the RattleSnake and add a unique vented ribbon tail? It makes for incredible action and unique water displacement for openers. Trust us, this thing is awesome.

To see the complete line of GrandeBass products you can visit their site at grandebass.com

“TTZ is all about building relationships and standing behind the products and companies we partner with. Jerry makes some great baits and he’s an even better guy to hang with. Jerry has always been gracious enough to work with us on an informal level, whether it be supplying product for our tournaments or showing us baits months before they are made public, it just made sense for us to finally get together and help spread what TTZ and GrandeBass stand for – good times, good friends and great fishing!”, says Andy about the partnership.

To sum it up, we think Jerry hit it on the head.

“GrandeBass is pleased and excited to be involved with TTZ. Both companies will be introducing new and innovative ideas, tournaments and products for the bass fishing industry that will undoubtedly set benchmarks. Old friends unite to bring a partnership that will help promote the great bass fishing industry and its anglers in Texas and beyond. GrandeBass is privileged to be a small part of this effort and the TTZ group.”

We have already started planning, and hope you will all be pleased with what’s in store. From brand new tournament potential to product giveaways, look for Grande where you see TTZ!

Lightning Strikes Lake Austin!

Posted: 8/21/2010

fish story

– noun
An exaggerated or boastful tale often used by fisherman to exaggerate the size of their catch.

Fish stories come to life at our favorite watering hole, after a tournament weigh-in or on those multi-day fishing trips hanging out at the fish camp. These tales can get so outlandish anglers sometimes tell them just to get a good laugh from their audience. Well, here’s a story almost too good to be true, the only catch is it’s not a fish story at all!

Lake Austin is often referred to as a hidden gem in the chain of Highland Lakes. The lake is notorious for two things: heavy recreational traffic and big ole bass! And when it comes to hooking the proverbial “fish of a lifetime”, many central Texas anglers look no further than Lake Austin. This is where Texas Tournament Zone fishing team member Andy Nuyen gets struck by lightning so to speak, right in the heart of Lake Austin underneath the historic 360 Bridge.

It was a typical Wednesday afternoon for Andy. Once a week during the spring through summer months, he and fellow TTZ team members Robby Crabb or Brian Booker run a weekly Wednesday night tournament on Lake Austin. When time allows, he likes to get to the lake a little early to relax, take in the scenery and sometimes wet a line before the Wed Nighter. Typically during the hottest times of the day in July and August, the fish tend to school right under the 360 Bridge. It’s been that way for years and anglers in the know can catch dozens of fish without cranking the big motor!

“I had been on the schoolies for about three weeks and basically had them to myself. These fish come up for only a couple hours a day, and it always seems to be when most people are still at work! The majority of them are whites and hybrids, but I manage to catch several black bass in the two to four pound range mixed in as well. It’s too fun watching these fish come up and knock that Sammy three to four inches clear out of the water,” said Andy.

After a month went by and he finally had his fill of topwater action, Andy thought of trying something different to catch the larger bass that may be under the schools of feeding fish waiting for an easy meal to come falling down. So he turned to a bait quickly gaining popularity in Texas – the flutter spoon. This bait has been around for years but was recently made famous by Kelley Jordon when he boated big fish after big fish on Kentucky Lake during a nationally televised fishing show.

Andy tells us more about his thoughts on the spoon.

“I’ve seen and heard of people using this bait to win tournaments and catch quality fish for a couple years now but never had the desire to give it a shot. But after seeing a fish in the six pound range come shooting out of deeper water to try and take the bait out of a small white bass I had hooked, something finally clicked.”

So he went to his local tackle shop, FishFinders Marine in Round Rock, TX, and bought a handful of flutter spoons from Jacky Roberts. What happened the following week is just short of amazing, but we’ll let Andy tell you the story.

“I had been sitting on the deck of the boat at the 360 ramp watching the lake for over an hour and didn’t see any fish schooling under the bridge; when Robby finally pulled up he wanted to put in and try to call ‘em up with Flukes and topwaters. Since I didn’t see any schooling activity I never tied on a Sammy or spoon and was too lazy to rig one up at this point, so I popped another coldie and planned to watch Robby fish under the bridge. That got boring really quick, and after Robby made two casts with the Sammy I decided to drag my lazy butt out of the seat and picked up one of his Power Tackle rods already rigged with a flutter spoon.”

Keep in mind Andy has never thrown a flutter spoon until now.

“I made a long cast and watched it sink to the bottom. On the third stroke of the very first cast something knocks the crap out of the spoon. I tell Robby, ‘Dude, something just whacked the crap out of that spoon’ and set the hook. After three or four cranks I tell him whatever it is it’s a big fish. The fish violently shakes its head three or four times and I immediately think it’s a big hybrid. It never comes up and halfway to the boat Robby jokes around saying it might be a big bass, but since I insisted it was a hybrid he wasn’t reaching for the net. I get the fish almost to the boat and it starts taking drag like a freight train, brings me to my knees and runs way under the boat to the other side. After fighting it back to my side of the boat it comes up and flashes and I yell at Robby to get the net!”

The fish weighed 10.60 pounds on the Equalizer scale. Andy caught her on the very bottom in 25-30 feet of water on his very first cast of the day fishing a bait he had never thrown before! This is Andy’s second double-digit bass out of Lake Austin within the last two years.

“It’s funny how things work out, I started wakeboarding on Austin back in 1999 and didn’t even cast a fishing rod on that lake until 2005. After catching a six pounder from my wakeboard boat I started fishing two to three times a week instead of wakeboarding. For me it doesn’t get any better, I can drop the MasterCraft in on the weekends and do a little wakeboarding or surfing and pick up the Legend to go fishing on the weekdays…and the whole time I am just minutes away from downtown Austin with a real shot at catching trophy sized bass!”

We’ll chalk it up to pure luck, but as the saying goes…he’d rather be lucky than good any day!

Toyota ShareLunker Season Ends with Big Day at O.H. Ivie

Posted: 5/03/2010

(May 3, 2010 TPWD News Release) April 30, the last day of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s 2009-2010 Toyota ShareLunker season, brought proof that sometimes it’s a good idea to pay attention to those “funny feelings” you get now and then.

Jerry Bales of Hico had two big fish in his livewells, and he had a feeling one of them was big enough to become a ShareLunker. But when the fish was weighed at Elm Creek Village Marina at O.H. Ivie, an official ShareLunker weigh and holding station, the scale read only 10 pounds. Disappointed, Bales and his fishing companions were already headed back to the lake when one of them said, “I think we weighed the wrong fish.”

Sure enough, they’d taken the fish from the wrong livewell. When the right fish was weighed, it came in at 16.08 pounds, making it not only Toyota ShareLunker 503 but also a new lake record that bested the old mark by nearly a pound and a half. Bales’s fish missed being the largest entry of the season by only 0.09 pounds. That honor, and Angler of the Year title, go to Keith Burns for the 16.17 pounder he caught from Caddo Lake March 20. However, Bales takes over the number 19 spot on the top 50 list of biggest bass caught in Texas. Bales’s catch also made the current season the first since 1992-1993 to have two or more 16-pound-plus entries into the ShareLunker program.

Wesley Pullig of Eden had a funny feeling when he headed for O.H. Ivie that morning. He was scheduled to meet ShareLunker program manager David Campbell to return ShareLunker 477 to the lake. He caught that fish January 21. “I just had a feeling I might catch another one,” Pullig said.

He was right. Not long after he put his first ShareLunker back into the lake, he caught his second, a 13.24 pounder that became ShareLunker 504, bringing O.H. Ivie’s number of entries for the season to 11. Other ShareLunkers returned to O.H. Ivie on April 30 were numbers 495, 499 and 500. Besides coming from the same lake, Toyota ShareLunkers 503 and 504 have something else in common: They are the only two entries to be caught on the last day of the season.

Pullig joins a very small group of anglers who have caught more than one ShareLunker in the same season. Scott Cupit caught two from Lake Fork in 1990; Bill Lozano caught one from Mill Creek and one from Lake Fork in 1991; Richard Mims caught two from Lake Casa Blanca in 2004; and David Utz caught two from Lake Ratcliff in 2006.

In a class all by himself is Jim Gore, who caught ShareLunkers 33, 34 and 42 from Lake Fork in 1989. One of those fish, No. 34, was the only male ShareLunker. It was accepted to be used as a broodfish because, at 6.5 pounds, it was the biggest male largemouth bass David Campbell had ever seen.

Pullig is believed to be the only angler ever to catch a second ShareLunker on the same day he put another back into the lake.

ShareLunker entries are used in a selective breeding program at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) in Athens. Some of the offspring from these fish are stocked back into the water body from which they were caught. Other ShareLunker offspring are stocked in public waters around the state in an attempt to increase the overall size and growth rate of largemouth bass in Texas.

Anglers entering fish into the Toyota ShareLunker program receive a free replica of their fish, a certificate and ShareLunker clothing and are recognized at a banquet at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. In addition, if a Texas angler catches the largest entry of the year, that person receives a lifetime fishing license.

The Toyota ShareLunker Program is made possible by a grant to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation from Gulf States Toyota. Toyota is a long-time supporter of the Foundation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, providing major funding for a wide variety of education, fish, parks and wildlife projects.