Joe Squire caught this fish on a Black PJ's 3/8oz Flipping Jig with a 3" Black Joes Jig Trailer on Van Sciver Lake in Morrisville, Pennsylvania

www.joesjigtrailers.com

Don Baker from Spring Hill, TN caught this 10 pound, 26 inch Bass with a 19 inch girth on a PJ Lures 3/8 oz brown flip n jig....with a trailer from joesjigtrailers.com.

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This last Saturday was supposed to be nothing more than another day on the lake for Sumiton angler Mark Russell. He and his fishing partner, Bobby Styles, left home early on a cold December morning heading to the weekly wildcat tournament at Smith Lake Dam.

Both anglers went into the event knowing that, in previous weeks it has been taking some good weights in order to get a check at these events. With that in mind, they fired up their Ranger powered by a Mercury Opti-Max and headed toward the Rock Creek area of the lake in search of a few good quality bites. Knowing that a cold front was coming into the area around lunchtime, they two figured they needed to limit out early in case the bite slowed down from the front.

Needless to say, neither of the anglers had even thought about the event that was to happen just a few hours after blastoff. The fishing duo had already boated a limit of small fish and another good quality Spotted bass by 10:00 am. Trying to add some weight to their catch they began fishing at the mouth of Rock Creek with the baits that had been producing in the previous weeks for them.

While fishing a dark green PJ's 'Lil Jig trailed by a Zoom watermelon swimming chunk, Russell received the bite on the lure that he'd been waiting for. One quick hookset of his G-Loomis rod and the fight was on. "The first run after the bite was a good one", Russell stated. "After that I just figured it was a decent fish, and never expected it to be such a monster" he said. After a few minutes of his Shimano reel taking all it could from the fight, and his 15 pound P-Line taking a beating, his partner finally was able to get the net under what would be a catch of a lifetime.

Russell knew the fish was a nice one, but never figured it would come close to surpassing the current state record Spotted bass. After getting back to ramp for the weigh in, the two put their fish in the weigh-in bag and headed for the scales. But, there was one small problem. They mistakenly put too many fish in their creel. They ended up bring one too many fish to the scales, and were penalized the use of their big fish. But, barring that mishap, all the other angler's jaws dropped in amazement once that huge fish was brought out in the open.

That Spotted bass tipped the digital scales at 9.05 pounds. Russell was content on turning the fish back into the lake when another angler stopped him short of the water and suggested to him that he may want to get the weight certified for a new state record. The current state record weighing 8 pounds 15 ounces came from Smith Lake in 1978, and was caught by Decatur's Phillip Terry. This fish would surpass that weight if the scales were right.

The next problem was to find some type of scales that have been certified in the pasted year. "That took us until after dark" Russell said. "We finally found certified scales at Son's Supermarket in Jasper". "But, by the time we had gotten there, the Spot had spit up a couple good sized shad while in the livewell". Well, that would cause a little glitch in the state record search. After a good ride in the livewell, loosing a bit of it's breakfast meal, and finally finding a set of certified scales, the fish would tip the scales at 8.83 pounds. Never the less, Mark Russell knows he's caught a state record, and everyone else now knows that Smith Lake can still produce some nice fish on occasion. Maybe even a fish of a lifetime...