Team9nine

I haven’t skunked this week, so there’s that, but I share in your pain. Our AC in the house went out Monday night, then the alternator in my truck dropped yesterday. It’s only Thursday and I’m already down $900 for the week ???

Hear, Hear! Not specifically a big bass fisher, but a large majority of the big bass I’ve caught have come mid day or early afternoon (12-4), often on the sunniest days. I always check out the sky conditions on others’ posted big fish catches. An Indiana 7 lb. fish from last year at 3:20pm

Two evening trips for me, too - yesterday and today. Picked off 10 yesterday and a dozen tonight…all on top ? A couple more trips if I’m lucky, then fishing gets shut down for a while. Gonna’ miss the ever present pond bite ?

It’s a bar - Buck Perry terminology - but as others have mentioned, ‘point,’ ‘wash’ or ‘slide’ might also be used. Probably happened a while back and all the shoreline visual references have been hidden as grass/brush/vegetation has reestablished. Very good areas to fish that often get overlooked by anglers for a variety of reasons.

Should of just grabbed a handful of that stuff and taken a picture out of the water - so hard to tell from that vantage. Could be coontail/hornwort as suggested already, but might also be Cabomba. Those would be my first two guesses.

For an SDJ - yes. For a Pitzen - no.

Tied up all day, but probably didn’t miss much with continued blue skies, a high just over 80, and light SE winds today. Did sneak out right at sunset for a quick shot at a bite, and temps had already dropped to the mid 70s . Was surprised to find some surface activity when I arrived around the weedline, so that’s how I fished, and quickly got bit. Stuck with it for about 35-40 minutes until it was well dark, and managed 6 bass. Been a while since I had a good topwater bite, so it was a fun change - and only burned up one Robo in the process.

Expected a brutal bite and pretty much got it. High pressure was centered over the state today. Highs in the mid 70s, blue-blue skies due to dewpoint readings in the 40s, and an E/NE breeze between 8-12 mph. Combine that with shallow, clear water, and not much was active. Went with the light line finesse outfit again and managed to catch a dozen. The first 11 came on the exact same Roboworm as my two previous trips, so that made 29 bass on a single little Robo - kinda hated to see it go (got flung off), but there wasn’t much solid body left to it ?

Lol - That’s one of my old screen captures I posted to another site about 11 years ago ?

Not much going on here today. Very cool (70s) and sunny,, with winds over 10 mph from the north all afternoon. Picked off half a dozen on the finesse rig, but probably need to hit a different location tomorrow or Friday when I next get out.

Sitting in la-la land on a slight ridge of low pressure with 5 fronts circling us today. Light winds, sunny skies, low humidity and temps in the low 80s, combined with the slow bite that's been going on here made be go finesse today - really finesse. Pulled out a ML outfit with 4 lb braid to a 4 lb leader, set up a split shot rig, and decided to see what would happen. Turned out to be a good call, with near perfect execution. Landed 12 bass total, never lost or broke off a fish, and caught them all on a single Roboworm that I still have left for the next trip ?

Something along this line seems like the best option. I checked the rules, and this statement is still in there: “Any boater that, in the judgment of the tournament director, operates the boat in such a manner that unfairly handicaps his/her co-angler and any co-angler who unfairly handicaps his/her boater may be disqualified for that day.“ Back in the day, and to force the issue when necessary, after making a request similar to the above option, if the boater still chose not to throw the back seat guy a bone, a reminder of this rule, along with a mention that you will refuse to sign his weigh-in ticket (do they still require that?), was usually all it took to get some assistance. In the worst cases, just sitting down, stop fishing, and having something to eat while reminding the boater he is wasting his time fishing since you’ll be filing an official protest when you get back in usually resolved the issue, though made for an unhappy boater. I had one friend who made the boater take him to shore and then left the event midday to make the point. He never fished another event after that - lol.

IMO, you need to slow your setup down just a bit in this situation, not your reaction time…or try this little trailer hook trick. It’s small enough it will pretty much come through whatever the main hook will, but is just enough added length to make a real difference (could even go smaller to a No. 2 or No. 4 limerick).

E/NE breeze today under mostly sunny skies as a ridge of high pressure sat over us. Temps have finally come down to something reasonable, too. Made a pass on the largest pond today and managed 8 bass, most all cookie cutter fish +/- an inch of the 13” mark. There were 5 other anglers there when I arrived, so the pressure might have played a part in the slower bite. Still felt good to swing on a few though after the heatwave kept ne off the water for a few days.

First time out in 4/5 days after suffering with heat indexes over 100 every day, topped by a reading of 111 on Thu. Even just standing outside playing with graph settings was miserable. Snuck out before sundown and was able to catch 4 on Ned. Hoping to get out again in the next day or two as cooler air invades for a short spell.

From the looks of my FB feed, there are plenty of bass guys that are willing to drop $60-$90k on a boat these days. If nobody was buying, the companies couldn’t charge that much, or stay in business. I just read a news story this past week that the lowest salary people consider worth changing jobs for these days is now $80k. My wife and I combined never made that much for most of our working lives. Needless to say, I’ll never have a $90k boat, but there appear to be plenty of people that can afford and do have them. Everything just goes up in scale; houses, salaries and toys ??

THESE ^^ Buck Perry 101: All fishing success, and all fishing failure, must first be answered in terms of depth and speed control

Never been a fan of water, but I’ve been trying to be better about drinking more, so I start every day with a full 24 oz bottle of mineral water and always try and finish it off before calling it a day. Add in some coffee, milk and soda at various points, and I usually get between 50-60 oz. of liquids per day (6-8 cups), not including food sources. When I was fishing out on the boat heavily during past summers for hours at a time, I’d drink much more, and usually add a bunch of Gatorade to the mix. Just walking the ponds for an hour or two is a lot less exertion and heat exposure. My wife, on the other hand, is much more health conscious than I and usually doubles my intake of liquids daily (80-100 oz), and it’s mostly water.

I go with a few basic colors that have proven themselves on my waters over time. Every once in a while I’ll throw something different, but not often. I focus much more on presentation, because basically it’s cheap and quick, and IMO, more important most days. Am I missing out on some secret color that will crush them on my waters? I don’t know It takes a lot of time, space and money to purchase, carry and then rotate through colors on the assumption that that is the key to more bites on any given day, when it could be any number of different things. It’s a game of probabilities, and fine-tuning color on a daily basis isn’t the way I prefer to play the game.

Technically, yes, but not sure how comfortable people would be with someone walking around out in the dark near their homes…then there are the mosquitos, but I have fished them right after the sun gets pretty low, up until a bit after dark. What wind we’ve had has died each day b4 sunset, so things have felt worse then, not better. Good breeze for Thu in the forecast, so maybe then.

Our next two days are 92 and 99 with 75 deg. dewpoints, so fishing is probably out of the question…probably ?

Got a slight break on the weather today; just 87 at the moment and dewpoint at 70 as we sit at the edge of a dry wedge of air. A NE breeze at 6-8 when it rose, otherwise sunny and calm, and the lakes are starting to clear. So not ideal conditions. Still, heat advisories the next two days with heat indexes over 100, so make a quick run today. Gave myself a limit; 1 hr or 10 bass, whichever came first. Turns out I caught #10 at about the 59 minute mark, so it didn’t really matter. Everything on a couple Ned options. Nothing of size, but the string got stretched, so it’s all good in my book…and it might have helped stop a tortoise from swallowing the world up today, too, so there’s that ?

Really come to like PB&J soft plastics. Probably would fall in my top 3 color list; top 5 for sure. Have had some success with PB&J jigs, too, though I don’t throw them as much. Definitely worth a try in my opinion.

Officially hit 90 here today with a dewpoint in the mid 70s and almost no wind - but we do have good cloud cover, so made a quick pass on the closest spot with a drop-shot and caught 3. Pretty bad when you drip with sweat from just standing in one spot shaking a worm - lol. Up to 99 by Thu., so trips will be few and short this week.