everythingthatswims

There's a pond near me that I get to fish about once or twice a year. 12-14" hybrid bluegills are the norm. We caught some on weedless super flukes with a 4/0 EWG hook

Not sure what I'd do if I couldn't fish. Can't live without it!

They may not even be there in early spring. The small river I fish is completely devoid of smallmouth from the end of October through the end of May. They go downriver to a bigger river to winter over, and don't come back til the spawn. My first smallies of the year usually come on a drifted 4" t-rig senko in the last week of April or first week of May.

Great minds think alike

You pay to fish for spawning crappie?

Conditions are so good right now that I made the 3hr round trip from my house to lake Anna for 2 hours of fishing at sunset. Plenty of herring around again so I caught a few dozen of those and headed out. Got into some small wipers that kept killing my baits and not getting hooked, but I did manage to land 6 stripers and 3 wipers. Mostly on live herring but 2 of the stripers were caught on a 3.8" fat swing impact. Lots of fun! The coolest thing that happened was when I could see my weight and herring on the fishfinder, then watched a fish rocket up off the bottom to it, my rod tip started vibrating when the herring got nervous, then WHAM fish on. 23"

This year in September I hit a local river for some green ones and brown ones. The first 2 miles of river is almost exclusively largemouth, and they were CHEWING. It was drizzling and overcast, so I was able to throw a cavitron the whole time. My first 5 casts produced 3 bass. From then on it was an all out slaughter on the cavitron, I don't know how many I landed, but I was finding schools and catching 2 or 3 in a row with regularity. After that I got into the more "smallmouthy" stretch of river, my first one there was 17" on the cavitron. Water was cooler because of another river feeding it so I had to change to a spinnerbait. I ended up catching around 2 dozen smallies and a few nice largemouth before my float trip ended and I called it a day. Best smallmouth was 19" probably 4lbs and the best largemouth was a little bigger than that. I've had plenty of days where my 5 fish limit would have been bigger than that day, but there's something about having a day when it's like you can't do anything wrong! Photos tend to post sideways coming from my phone, not sure why.This fish was only about 3# but it was a very good looking fish. The bigger largemouth was kind of ugly

My mind won't let me do that anymore because I'm always thinking what I could be doing if I was completely prepared haha. That's how I end up with 6 rods in my kayak. Sometimes I convince myself to just take a spinning rod and a bag of trick worms though.

How'd you do?

I go when I can, but sometimes the conditions tell me that I need to get a friend to cover my shift at work or tell my friends that I'm busy and can't hang out that day

In the last month I have spent a heck a lot of money and burned through who knows how many packs of swing impacts and swing impact fats. Worth it? You bet.

My brothers, my Dad, and I headed to Hampton VA (about a 3hr drive) with one of my dad's friends and his kids to spend the night at a relatives house. This was in February and we were towing the boat to go to the Outer Banks and try for a bluefin since the weather was nice. Woke up at 2am in Hampton to start the drive to Oregon Inlet. Everything went smoothly and we made it to the ramp around 4am to put the boat in the water and make it offshore in time to have the lines out before the sun came up. Well my little brother broke the key off in the ignition of the Yukon that was pulling the boat WHILE IT WAS STILL RUNNING, and we couldn't figure out how to get the key out or shut the car off. After 30 minutes of fumbling with the keys we managed to get it all straightened out and put the boat in the water. Whew, dodged that bullet! Everything is good to go and we start heading out of the channel, then one of the twin 150 yamahas quits...... The best thing we caught that day was a plate full of breakfast at a local pancake house, and a heartbroken 5 hour drive back home.

When my brothers and I have the "kayak fleet" out on a lake or river, we just say "Fish!"

Around here, eagles come quick when they hear a gun shot. You won't find a crow fighting over a gut pile with one, they pretty much get first dibs.

Brine in salt/brown sugar water for 2-3 days, slice the breast open and stuff with sausage, peppers, and onions, wrap in bacon, and grill it. I would never give goose to my dog either, that would mean I don't get to have any! They make great jerky also

Zoom Z Drop is my #1

Tons of herring moved in at the area I fish on Lake Anna. Blueback herring make fish behave in very strange ways and today was no exception. I started off targeting some breaking fish that I assumed were stripers (what else would chase bait on the surface in 48 degree water, RIGHT?), throwing a 4" swing impact on a light jighead. Every time something thumped my swimbait I expected a nice little linesider, but every time I was shocked to see a green one on the end of my line. Today I kept a free lined herring behind my kayak at all times. It was so easy to net them that I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The free lined herring produced about half of my fish today. Fish only fed during the first and last hour of daylight, something I wouldn't expect in the winter, but again these are herring eaters so they do what they want. I gave it my best during the mid day lull, and even though I could see them on my fishfinder, they were not interested in anything at all, even live herring. Fish started to pick up again in the evening though. In the last 15 minutes of daylight it was like someone flipped a light switch and every striper in the area came to the surface for a couple of minutes. I landed 4 on the swimbait in 5 casts, then they were gone as quickly as they appeared. Ended the day with 24 largemouth, 4 stripers, and a channel cat for the icing on the cake. Exactly 80 largemouth this year so far...I may have a problem.

Snow day

8 on the cold side, 16 on the hot side

I'm probably going to be half dead from my kayak adventure tomorrow but thank you for the offer. Got home from work at 10 so I just finished up packing everything. Should be an interesting day!

The largemouth were the only ones doing anything there yesterday morning and evening. Didn't see the first striper surface

You've got options though. A) throw a vision 110 and rave about it being the go-to winter bait on Anna, B ) hop blades and spoons C) crowd around dike 3 with everyone else Spring will be here soon. Maybe.

The spawn is still a long ways off but I always fish warming trends in the winter. On and after the third day with a high of at least 50 degrees and especially if it has been sunny, the bass feed well.

Fished sunup to sundown on my kayak at lake Anna today. Water temp was 48-49 degrees on the cold side, surprisingly I found a school of hungry bass and caught 8 of them on a 4" swing impact on a 1/8oz head. Hot side wasn't nearly as warm as usual, I started in 50 degree water and ended up in 59 degree water when I got closer to the plant. Fishing was really tough compared to usual on the hot side, I landed 16 largemouth there. 3 of them were on an alabama rig (two of which were caught at once!), and a couple on a 4" swing impact, but most of them ate either a pointer 100 or pointer 78. In the hot side I found a cove where a huge school of bass had pinned a school of shad the size of my living room to the very back of it. It looked like grass at first but then I paddled over and saw the thousands of shad too scared to leave the shallow water. I even tried chasing them back toward the bass to ignite the frenzy again but they wouldn't leave. I camped on the spot for a couple hours picking off fish when they would start schooling, it was a blast. Groups of 5-10 bass would follow the hooked fish to the boat when it was "on". The fish came in flurries today, I found the school at 3pm and had only landed 4 fish at that point. Best fish of the day, 18-19"ish The double COLD!

I can't wrap my brain around your cold water success