Jar11591

@ol'crickety I agree that bass prefer slim bodied prey like golden shiners and yellow perch to broadsides like bluegill and pumpkinseed. I often times witness bass cruising right through schools of pumpkinseed or bluegill and a lot of the times the sunfish pay the bass no mind, and vice versa.

I own thousands, bring hundreds, and throw maybe a dozen.

My prediction for ice out is April 10th. Last years prediction turned out to be too optimistic despite the warmer winter. The lakes here are already locked up, whereas they didn’t lock up last year until mid January. Think it’s gonna be a long cold one in upstate NY.

@gimruis my girlfriend and I are those people, and I don’t understand it. We’re the only ones we know that haven’t had it, and most people we know have had it multiple times. And it’s not like we don’t test ourselves if we’re exposed or get any symptoms. I don’t get it, but I’ll take it!

Same. When I fish lakes like that it’s usually from 4am and I’m off the water by 9-10. Even then if it’s a weekend, it can already be a zoo.

@ol'crickety yep, water #4 is a very ol’crickety style bog. You’d be right at home on those waters.

I have 5 or so bodies of water that I fish with regularity, and they’re all very different. Water #1 is my favorite. It’s a small (<200 acres), quiet mountain lake that has lots of structure/contours, lots of lay downs and shoreline timber, beautiful milfoil flats, and Lily pad fields. It’s great for size and numbers, and only contains largemouth. It holds my domestic PB at 6lb 3oz. Water #2 is a lake about 600 acres, and it’s a round bowl with very gradual contours, maxes out at about 20’ and there is a crazy amount of submerged and emergent vegetation in the way of milfoil, hydrilla, grass, pads, water chestnut and more. A very typical largemouth lake. It’s known to hold some giants, and I have a feeling my new domestic PB could come from here. Water #3 is a lake a little less than 900 acres. It’s a very “developed” lake even though it’s nestled in the mountains. This lake has depths up to 100’, and tons of rocky structure, islands, channels, shoals, rock piles, timber, weed beds and drop offs. Structure and cover wise, you’d be hard pressed to find a better lake. This lake holds largemouth and smallmouth, but I usually target smallies when I fish here. Early and late in the season and/or the day is better for this lake because it gets downright insane during summer days. So much boat traffic makes it downright dangerous. Water #4 is a small swampy bog. No real depth changes, about 5’ deep the entire way through it’s 100 or so acres. Tons of vegetation, some mid lake brush piles but that’s about it. Punching and frogging is the way here. The lake holds some real giants. Only Larry and pickerel inhabit this bog, plus some dinner plate sized panfish. Water #5 is a small river in the mountains. Shallow and narrow, with slow meandering current defines this river. Lots of rocks and timber. This river doesn’t hold giants, but it’s a blast to float and catch smallies up to a couple pounds all day. You could easily catch a hundred or so smallies in a day here. They readily eat anything you throw. The river also holds brown, brook, rainbow and tiger trout and you can easily catch these in between the smallmouth. I’ve never seen another boat on this river either.

Can you catch them in the middle of the day, fishing in the middle of jet skiers and wake boarders and pleasure cruisers that batter the lake into a froth to the point where you wonder if there are even any fish left in this torrential wave pool of human activity? This is where I really struggle. But for me it’s the motivation to keep fishing surrounded by so much human activity that gets me.

I’m an upstate NYer. Been here all my life. It’s my home and I love it here. I’ll never live anywhere else. But d**n these north country winters really suck sometimes. Couple inches of wet snow yesterday and sub-20-degree temps last night equal a lot of windshield scraping this morning. The best way to start the day! I’m thankful I’m no longer under contract for snow removal though.

Here’s my most productive baits of 2023. No surprises at all here. Strike King Tour Grade double willow Spinnerbait with a Rage swimmer trailer, Megabass PopX and Pop Max, Siebert Brush jig with a Netbait Paca Chunk, a 5” Yum Dinger, and a midsize Rage Structure Bug.

@Eric 26 I’ve seen Pierce the Veil once or twice back in the day. They were usually the act right before the headliners. They put on a good show.

Been a member for about decade now. I remember the first thing I learned here. It was that there are many others like me who absolutely obsess over bass fishing. BR was the first exposure I ever had to other obsessive fishermen, and I immediately felt a sense of camaraderie. As for what else I’ve learned here over the last 10 years, it’s hard to think of one singular thing. I owe the majority of my bass fishing knowledge to other members here. So many times on the water I’ll think to myself “where did I learn this technique?” or “how did pick up on this habit?”, or “what made me pick this spot to fish?”. And the answer can usually be traced back to bass resource. I’ve always been what I think is a naturally inclined fisherman, but BR is what made my bass fishing skill grow exponentially.

During the hard water season my equipment gets moved from the garage to the basement. The rods get stored vertically in a holder, and my reels usually get shipped off for servicing and that’s generally where they stay almost until opening day.

Yikes. Now I feel silly for complaining about the few inches we’ve gotten so far. Everything is gone by noon. Nightly lows are really getting down there though.

Just read about it this morning. Doesn’t respond to antibiotics which is concerning. Luckily it’s not often that any of my 3 dogs interact with strangers dogs.

Heck yeah man, that’s what’s motivating me. That and the fact that my girlfriend and I are in the very beginning stages of having a house built in the mountains. This degree will make it a lot easier. And even when I’m done with school in 2025 I’ll have a lot more time to spend on the water. School and work at the same time makes it really difficult.

Just awesome. That is the stuff that bass dreams are made of.

@ol'crickety I agree, you do need to start using Spinnerbaits. In your lakes, you’d slay them! @Blue Raider Bob Thanks Bob. I hope so as well. Next year shouldn’t be as busy so I should have more time on the water in the fall. @RipzLipz Yep that is a 1987(?) Coleman Crawdad. It has served me so well. Even when I upgrade to an outboard, the Coleman will still see a ton of use. As for that fish finder mount, it came with the fish finder. I bought it back in 2014, so it isn’t exactly the same but it’s very similar to this one right here: Humminbird 140C Fishin' Buddy 3.5-Inch Waterproof Fishfinder https://a.co/d/iG561iZ Its very crude and basic, so i more use it for depth and temperature rather than actively looking for returns.

X-Raps and Husky Jerks are mainstays in my box.

This is especially true with destinations. I could mention to my girlfriend that I think we should visit Mogadishu. An hour later online I’d be getting ads for the Somalian Tourism Bureau.

My prediction was spinnerbait. Turned out to be a jig. No big surprise there. 5lb 2oz

The 2023 season is about wrapped up for me. Even if we have a nice day before ice-in, a wrist injury I got going on probably kills any hope of getting out one last time. So I figured I’d make a 2023 Wrap Up report. I was able to get out a good amount from April- August until I started full time college in late summer. As a 32 year old with full time work and full time school it made my fishing time dwindle. So most of my good catches came from early spring until mid summer. As well as a couple river trips, I kept my fishing to two lakes this year. One lake is a new lake to me that I moved with in 15 minutes of last year. Shallow, extremely weedy, and wide gaps in between contour lines. Not my favorite kind of lake but I did well in it. The other lake was my favorite little mountain lake that is always so kind to me. Big fish of the year weighed 5lb 2oz, and came out of my mountain lake shortly after ice out in early April. She was hiding in some shoreline brush and munched a Siebert Outdoors brush jig and Paca Chunk trailer: Top 3 Baits 1. Popper 2. Spinnerbait 3. Senko The popper was back on top of the bait leaderboard. It’s been tops like 5 out of the last 7 years. The fish in my lakes can’t get enough of topwater lures, and I’m thankful for that. Last years winner, the spinnerbait, fell to second. Good numbers of high 4s and low 5s. These are some of the better catches from the year: My main goal was a new PB largemouth, specifically in the 7lb class, so I mainly targeted the green ones this year. Didn’t catch any PBs though. It’s now been 6 years without a PB, but every year my determination grows. All in all it was a decent season, and if I had been able to get out consistently the later part of it, it probably would have been one of my better seasons of the last decade. The grade I’ll give it is a B-. So for the next few months I’ll be living vicariously through all you southerners who get to fish all year and endlessly scrolling through the latest catch thread.

Really sad to see this. RIP

Not one to listen to music when I’m seriously fishing, but this kinda vibe would be it: “And it Stoned Me” - Van Morrison https://youtu.be/AYqJtqyeilE?si=WPK7jpTtkiMoSJ-k