MIbassyaker

I humbly submit my entry for homemade "baby bass vibrating jig" EDIT: sorry, I see this is a serious discussion...let me read the antecedent arguments and then maybe I will have a relevant opinion .... Carry on.......

Yeah, i was wondering because Allegan Dam "should" be a barrier on the Kalamazoo River, but you know... Sounds like they were really active so maybe no other explanation is needed!

That tube has "goby" written all over it -- are the gobies getting up into to your stretch of the river??

Pretty little guy! Its so easy to forget there are over a dozen black bass species, most of which can only be found in very particular places of the country. A recent study did a genetic analysis and found that black basses as a group may be best described as 19(!) distinct species, including a few that have not been officially recognized: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9170712/

Werewolf with chartreuse tail.

yeah, no fog today, but a layer of algae on top (zoom in on the top set of pics and look at the water). Fog is great though.

Me too...except when its toxic!

Little bit of a pea soup situation today on this lake, but a good morning with 13 in 4 hours...plus another 3 or 4 that got off and half-dozen failed buzzbait hookups. Almost all were 16" to 18", and hit one of 3 baits -- Black Cavitron buzzbait, Gold double-willow Pepper Spinnerbait, or a t-rigged Rage Tail Space Monkey: Big fish was 19", 3.70lb and nailed the cavitron in a foot of water....was probably 4+a couple months ago: Double portrait of the angler under gray skies, with another 16 & 17....enjoying likely one of the last trips he will have time to make this year:

I also have some difficulty in fall...any outing is either boom or bust. I tend to chalk it up to lack of experience on my part, as I don't get to fish much this time of year and there is no one place where I have racked up a lot of hours on the water after early September. But its interesting to hear another Northerner say they find Fall somewhat vexing like I do.

I always try to choose lures that can cover the bases with depth (top, middle, bottom) and presentation style (vertical vs. horizontal). You might start with something you can fish faster and more horizontally to pick up more active fish-- maybe a paddle-tailed swimbait or a spinnerbait. When you get bit, make note of the location, and on the next pass, make some extra casts to those areas with something you can fish more vertically and slowly for warier or less-active fish. Then for the next passes, perhaps vary the size or profile.

How would I rate myself? I wouldn't.

I have very little choice about when I am able to float somewhere, so if that's the day I'm free, yes, I bother. Anyway, challenging conditions are good for you. Puts hair on your chest. (but don't tell @gimruis, or he'll make you shave it off)

"Hell is other people." --Jean-Paul Sartre

I can't get my head around what it means to "hate" a technique. There are techniques at which I'm not very successful, and techniques that I don't use. And some I have never tried because I have no interest in them. Do I hate them? Not really. The only thing I can think of is fishing with live leeches (yuck) but I only did that for walleye.

The call of a sandhill crane around dawn..... but preferably somewhere on the other side of the lake rather than hiding in the rushes right next to you. #heartattackfuel

The sound of the only other craft on the water going back to the launch.

Look up Strike King 3X elaztech. There are still a few baits available in that line, but not as many as there used to be.

A lot of places I fish get a big algae bloom in summer, and wind up with water like you are describing. For me, all green-stained low-visibility water cries out for some chartreuse - dark bottom baits with chartreuse highlights (like plastics with a chartreuse tail or claw), spinnerbaits with chart., white/chart, or blue/chart skirts usually produce well for me in this situation. I would expect the bass to stay tight to cover or to the bottom, but possibly at any depth -- it depends on where the food is. It sounds like the pond has a more gradual sloping side and a steeper side, is that what you're saying? All else equal, the colder it gets, the better a steeper drop should fish With vegetation gone, I wonder what dissolved oxygen levels are like -- is there a fountain? or an inlet?

Is that the 3.5 Yamatanuki? What hook are you using?

I have never used the Kreature, but if you want it weighted, it looks like this rig I use for the 5" Hula Grub might work -- that's a 1/4oz Fin-Tech Title shot jig: I get 5 or more fish per body pretty regularly with this.

Went back to a lake I haven't visited since 2016. The MI DNR lists this place among the "better" fishing waters for largemouth bass in its county....which is not quite what I experienced the handful of times I fished it, and why I dropped it from my rotation. There are bass here, but what I have caught has always run small, with the largest topping out at 13 inches. My previous trips were in June and July. Maybe worth another look in a different month? 4 1/2 hours and 10 more short fish later, I am not dissuaded from the feeling that I was right to prioritize other places. The biggest two again ran 13", everything else 10-12: Better than catching no fish, for sure... but maybe more of a Lake Menderdink than a Lake Menderchuck...

oh yes, the Common Snipe, Cryptomythus jocularis, is native to this region.

There's nothing idiotic about making a successful presentation! Mark Zona, Bassmaster host. Zona Live is a youtube series where he goes on the water, often with a guest, and they fish for a few hours while livestreaming (although I don't think he has made a new one for a couple years).

I will now ruin the joke by explaining it: Originated from a Zona Live episode he filmed in Michigan a number of years back. Zona uses it as a stand-in word for a "not-to-be-named" lake he was fishing on, and they caught a whole bunch of very large pre-spawners. Because the word is funny and sounds like it could almost be a real place, it just stuck around here as a name for any other secret body of water with big fish.

Need to ask @A-Jay if he has seen a certain familiar rig following him around on the water lately...