Movarus

11.2, wow great catch! Gives me hope that I'll catch something bigger around here myself (also living in eastern, NC). I understand the camera pains as well. I only have a camera phone... and the flash is pretty bad. Tried to take a picture of one of the fish I caught last night and... well... I could see the reflection of his eyes in the picture, and that was about it. >

I love the frog action already, but haven't given rage tail a try. I might have to pick up a pack now. Those are some great fish!

X2 And I appreciate all the info you guys have given, I try to put it to use every time I'm out. ;D

To be quite honest, most of the current lures I using and the techniques I use with them have come from lurking these boards. I really appreciate the info that is scattered about. And, yes it was amazing to land that fish. Especially, because I was so worried with all the logs and branches around.

Early in the day yesterday I decided I wanted to go fishing. Some afternoon storms popped up and started to sway that decision in the other direction. All around where I live, people were getting hit with some pretty heavy rain, and I could see the lightning and hear the thunder all afternoon. Somehow, the storms completely missed my area though, and at about 7pm last night I decided I would head down to the spot me and a friend found recently. I figured I could get at least an hour to an hour and a half of fishing in before dark. After hitting every red light on the way, I finally reached my destination. Set up and threw out the trick stick on my line. After a little bit, nothing. Switched up to a frog... still nothing. I was starting to wonder if I'd even get a bite tonight. Finally decided to switch over to a smoke shad duper fluke. That was the best decision of the night. First cast, fish on! For some reason I still have a reaction to try to set the hook vertical and I think that may have been the reason I ended up losing 3 out of the 4 fish I caught. The first two on my line were decent size, but as they got close to me they jumped and spit the hook. Starting to get a little irritated, I threw again right onto a nice sized log. As soon as the bait hopped to the other side, I felt a fish. This time I took my time and reeled in towards the fish and set the hook in a horizontal sweep. I will have to thank you guys for that as I read that somewhere around here before. Thankfully this hook was set well. After a good fight and trying to keep him from getting caught on all the logs and branches around I landed this guy... ( Sorry not the best quality, took on a camera phone. ) I swear these pictures don't due him any justice. I was by myself and my camera phone was not doing the job. I was pumped. I had never seen a LM this big up close, and caught by me no less. I swear I could fit my fist into his mouth. Definitely my personal best, but alas I don't own a scale yet so no way to know how much he/she really weighed. It's ok though I know how big he looked and how fun the fight was, I was psyched the rest of the night and missed another fish due to some jitters I had. Overall, this spot has paid off every time I have gone down to it. I just hope it stays a secret a little bit longer .

Dang, aren't those a little expensive? How much are you investing per lure? :-? Good to hear you built confidence in the bait though. I have heard nothing but great things about all of Mattlures products. I'll have to save up and try a few out.

Me and a buddy of mine have been trying to find some good places to shore fish around here (Greenville, NC area) for a while. Most of the time the ponds we come across are owned and off limits or very small. We have had mixed luck until last night. We started off searching through google maps, looking for a few more places to check out. We went back across a pretty big pond we had actually been to before, but this time around we found a new way in and it led us to the other side of the lake. Turns out there were some ATV trails back there and a lot of really good shore fishing locations. My very first cast with a black buzzbait with chartreuse grub trailer actually sparked a bite big enough to not only get my attention, but my buddy down the shore let me know he heard it too. At that point, we at least knew that there were fish here. Casted a few more times... nothing. So we moved up the shoreline. At one point I was about to take the buzzbait off but decided to go back to the place where we started and give it a few more casts. It was a great idea too, after two casts... BAM, fish on! Biggest fish of the night. Put up a good fight too. Of course I was excited at this point. Excited enough that as I put the guy back in the water I found a soft spot in the mud and went over ankle deep in it :-/. But I got over it quick and a few casts later... BAM, another one! I was pumped by this point. After a while of moving along the shore and throwing the buzzbait with nothing, I switched to a crank, then a popper and nothing. "Eh, maybe those were the only two around here" I thought to myself. It was a small little alcove I was fishing in. Decided to throw on a 4" Green Pumpkin/Chartreuse trick stick t-rigged and give the alcove one more go as we were packing up to leave. Good thing too, because as I got down to the end I hooked another one! All in all, a great night and we have definitely found a great place to fish without a boat. ;D

Nice pics! I've recently really got into froggin as well. I've been buzzing ***'s Strokin Toad across the top of the water with great success. It's amazing how pumped seeing the strike gets you. Keep up the good work!

Hey Sam, is there any way you could copy and paste that PM over my direction as well? I'm very new to plastic's still and I'm always looking for information that can help me out. I've attempted wacky rigging before, but I haven't had a whole lot of luck yet. Anyways, I'd appreciate it a lot.

Strike King Pro Model Crankbait with a bill, 1/4 ounce I think. The one I used dove 2-5 ft and it has "free-floating rattles".

Yesterday at about noon, I got a call from a buddy of mine asking if I wanted to go out on his boat and try to fish some striped bass. I never miss a chance to get out on the water and of course said I'd love to. The day before we had actually gone out on some brackish water early and didn't have any luck period. So we decided that we would try it out later in the evening this time around. We got to the dock around 5 (ended up leaving later than noon) and quickly set out on the water. Checked a few areas he had caught things in the past and we had no luck. We went to the channel area and threw on some rattling baits and trolled around a while, still no luck. That was, until we stopped. He actually tangled his line and in the process of him fixing it I switch over to a 1/4 ounce rattling crankbait in a Sexy Shad coloring. Wham! Fist cast, fish on! ;D Got him to the boat and even though he was a little guy it was a fish and due to what I learned about stripers being schooling fish, meant there were going to be plenty around that night. That was around 5:40pm. We trolled around a bit and passed by a more shallow area than we had been previously fishing. Again he got tangled, in my line this time. In the process of me reeling the tangle itself in, I hooked another one! We went back and forth letting him untangle and me reeling the fish in. Fish number 2 was a keeper! We cast around a few more times and nothing much. We ended up moving a little further into the shallower water (by shallow I mean about 6 ft of water as opposed to the channel which was 14-20 ft) and that was when the fun began. We found one of those "schools" and it was like every other cast for a while netted a fish in the boat. They are awesome fish to catch and it was an extremely satisfying trip. Especially since we haven't had much luck lately, it was nice to see things turn around. I never did take that crankbait off all night. Poor guy is pretty beat up now too. In the end we caught 17 fish total. He picked up 4 stripers (he was having problems with a few of his crankbaits) and I picked up 12 stripers (4 keepers) and one gar 8-). This was also the first time I picked up a gar as well. All in all it was a great night and I recommend to anyone who hasn't gone fishing for striped bass, that they should. I hope to have a picture up soon of 2 of the keepers I caught, the picture was on my buddy's cell phone so I'll probably get it when he gets around to it.

I braved almost these exact conditions yesterday! The only difference is that it was cloudy, so I wasn't as far into an extreme. Turned out to be one of the best fishing days in forever. It feels good to be so extreme. It was cool to hear so many stories. ;D

Noticed that my post was moved, didn't realize this forum existed. Must have just missed it. Sorry about posting in the wrong place and thanks for opening up another good sub-forum. Back on subject. I've been fishing really close to a storm once. I was fishing a river in Northern MN when I was younger. A storm rolled in but stayed clear of the area we were fishing. As a matter of fact, we didn't see one drop where we were sitting. Never even saw lightning, though we did hear thunder in the distance. The fishing ended up being great. Come to find out a tornado had touched down a little over a mile NE of us if I remember correctly. I was fishing with a friend at the time and his parents were less than thrilled that we didn't get out of the "storm" and find shelter. It was more of us being naive and less of stupidity at that point. I honestly would never fish in a thunderstorm now days. First flash of light and sound of thunder sends me packing.

Over the past few days, due to some wildfires east of here, there has been a haze of smoke in the area. When it first moved in, everyone around here freaked out a little and decided to keep their kids indoors and limit outdoor activities. I had a day of fishing planned at a new pond I came across. This little event almost ruined that day. I thought about it off and on during work and came to the conclusion that I made plans for fishing and this darn smoke wouldn't keep me from it. I decided to still head out to the pond, even though the smoke was thick enough to keep visibility down to 1/4 mile. Turns out, over the few hours I was there, the smoke either seemed to thin out a bit or I was getting used to it. I ended up catching 3 bass around 2-3 lbs and a pretty large bluegill. All in all a fun evening fishing. So my question for you guys... what have you done or dealt with while fishing that other people would have looked at you and gone, "Why the heck would you want to go fishing now?"

Banjo Minnows here. I was younger and naive. It looked so real and worked so great on the commercials. I could barely get it to work right and the only thing I ever caught was a few Northern Pikes. I guess it wasn't too much of a gimmick as I caught something, but I definitely bought it for the bass potential... plus Northern Pikes seemed to pick up just about anything anyways.

My avatar is probably the only fish I've actually got a decent picture of this year, and it's not very good :-[. But throw that one in for North Carolina.

Hey everyone. I'm new to these boards and enjoying them a lot. I've got a ton of info just browsing through different topics. But, on to my question for this specific forum. Does anyone know of any good fishing areas (lakes, rivers, creeks, whatever) around Eastern North Carolina. I actually live in Winterville, NC which is just outside of Greenville. Greenville is about an hour to an hour and a half SE of Raleigh. Hope that gives you a little idea of where abouts I am located. I moved down this way a while back, but only recently got back into fishing. And I'm big into it again. So, I'm trying to find as many options as possible to start trying out, hoping I might find a good selection of places to choose from. I know of the Tar river, and Jordan lake (Jordan lake is a bit of a drive though), but I'm trying to see what else is around. Any information I could get would be great! I recently went fishing on Lake Norman in Charlotte, NC and it was a blast. I'm really hoping to find some good places closer to home, though. I really want to keep that great feeling going!