I've been dying to scratch my top-water ITCH for a while now and after reading about Rich on numerous forums, sites, and watching his latest striper video, I knew he was the Gold-bond man with a cure. After a few phone calls, and a few sleepless nights (you all know the feeling), it finally happened. My brother and I met up with Rich on Sunday, October 17th at about 6:40am over at Russo's Marina. Rich had mentioned that he lives on Russo's, but what he forgot to mention was that he literally lives on top of Russo's Marina
With his bad-*** bass boat already in the water and ready to go, we wasted no time arriving to his secret spots on False River. The weather was windy with a whole lot of overcast (ideal Striper conditions 
). First cast with the Lunker Punker, holy shiet....bird-nested instantly, the line breaks, and the lure goes flying a few hundred feet 
. Today was going to be an awesome day, I just knew it and I was pretty sure Rich was thinking... "oh boy, what did I get myself into".Within the first 30mins we started getting blow-ups on the punker and that was when the excitement started. My brother and I were giggling at each other like little school girls because we've never done any top-water striper fishing and here we were seeing some actions. First fish to the boat was a 17in, followed by a few more 16-17 inches. Not too much longer after, boom...back to back keepers. A little time passed and I hook onto a 5lbs. large mouth bass followed by constant 16-17 inch actions on the punker. About 3 hours into our already awesome day, it gets better
. I chucked the punker out and started walking her back slowly..... at this time I am chatting with the guys and all of a sudden, SPLASH!!!! I feel a hard tug and it's fish on!!! Of course, me being the nice brother that I am, I passed the rod over to my brother so that he can reel her in and claim the prize. The fish took a few nice runs and a couple dives and it finally surfaced and gave up. After Rich assessed the fish, he said she was right around 15-20lbs. We gave each other high-fives and back into the water she went to fight another day. About an hour or two goes by, Rich gets a call from Grant Olguin. I was like Grant who? Rich said "Grant, the man responsible for you being able to slay all of these Stripers". It all came together and I got the opportunity to talk to the owner of Black Dog Baits, the man himself behind the Lunker Punker!!! What an awesome guy, he took the time out of his busy day to see how Rich was doing and he actually wanted to talk to me...I give him all the respect for that. I would also like to personally thank Grant, he had a brand new Lunker Punker JR wood trout waiting for me at Rich's door step. Thank you sir.
Right around noon, the bite started to slow down and it started to rain. We moved around and Rich showed me a few of his other spots that has produced for him in the pass and then it started to come down pretty hard. None of us had any rain gear on and we were freezing our behinds off, but nowhere near quitting either. We braved the howling wind and the rain for a few more hours picking up a few more fish and a couple blow-ups here and there. We finally threw in the towel at around 3pm and started our way back to the marina.
All in all, we had a good day, NO!! We had a BAD-*** day!!! Took home 4 keepers, released a 15-20pounder and 12+ 16-17inch, and 1 5lb+ large mouth bass. The weapon of choice was the Lunker Punker and that was pretty much all that we threw for the entire day. Rich was an awesome Guide, not only did he put us on a ton of fish, he taught and showed me so much stuff that you would have to be there to understand what I mean. I normally troll for stripers and so I am not new to the delta, but I can honestly say that because of Rich, I am a better fishermen and I can definitely apply what I've learned from him. For those of you who are not sure where to fish, how to fish, and what to use to catch fish.... give Rich Thiel a call or visit http://www.calbassguide.com. If you don't already have a few Lunker Punkers in your tackle box, grab a few, I know I am a little late, but the hype about these baits are all true!!
of the bait is too sexy that fish gets turn on so bad!!!
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