BooyahMan

...from photos and a video? The reason I ask is because I am contemplating getting a replica made of my PB. The problem is I only took a rough length measurement but no girth measurement. I am LOUSY at remembering what a fish actually looked like (hence why I take a lot of pictures if given the opportunity), and thus I'm turning to the good fishers of BassResource for their infinite wisdom and experience with these awesome fish. So...if you guys even want to take a stab at guessing the girth I'm more than willing to hear it. I really wish I could go back in time to get an actual measurement but if there is some sort of agreement on a number then I'm more than willing to take it. Some of you may remember seeing these photos before; they're not new but I'm putting them all in this thread for reference. The length of the fish is about 21 inches, might have been a smidge over. Oh, and I'm not a real big guy. I'm 5'5" if that helps any. Thought this might help some more so I'm also including a short video of the fish. Please...excuse my fascination with the dorsal spines. I'm a little weird that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29EEwZd8hk Thanks for all input, even if you tell me that it's impossible and I just have to wait until I get another PB before I can measure it Also, just would like to say that I hope no one misconstrues this post as me bragging about a fish. I know lots of much bigger fish have been caught and never replicated but this fish has some importance to me. Hope no one minds!

Catching dinks is way better than catching nothing, and catching nothing is way better than being stuck inside.

Just ordered an Okuma Citrix Ci-364a baitcaster for $35. Excited for that!

Oh man, this reminds me of something that happened to me while fishing for Smallmouths during the summer. We were bank fishing when this woman starting yelling and swearing at a Husky that was wading in the water. half an hour later she came up to us and asked if we could help get the dog out of the water. Turns out she had been trying to get it to shore for the last hour but it kept ignoring her. Looked as though it was stalking the juvenile Smallies in the shallows and enjoying it a little too much haha. My girlfriend's sister went into the water and "landed" the dog in less two minutes.

Oh here's another one: "There are fish in this lake?" Nope, just meditating here rusting my hooks in the water and holding a fishing rod in my hand.

"(insert lure/bait) doesn't work here" Or the alternative: "Only (insert lure/bait) works here"

This is an impossible question to answer because there are just too many to pick from, and if I answered this thread every day for a year I would have 365 different answers. In saying that, are we allowed to post multiple times in this thread or do we get disqualified? Since you are forcing us to choose, my pick for today would be my girlfriend's first Bass on a hollow body frog. This fish was by no means a lunker of any sort (it was maybe just over a pound), but up until that point she had never had luck sticking them on the frogs. On the previous trip she had come with me, she actually got more blow-ups than I did but lost all of them. Then one chilly November evening, right before a storm rolled through, she got one on her second cast. The rock that she was standing on was cut off from land as the water was quite high that day, but when I heard her holler and saw that rod bending I ran through the water in case she needed help. I bought a pair of rubber boots the day after haha!

And yet another vote for 12 inches = dink. Around here at least that seems to be the cut-off for quantity of fish vs. quality of fish. If you fish light tackle and small hooks you'll catch up to 12 inches all day long, but you have to work for it a lot more if you want anything bigger than that.

What I truly want for Christmas is to have enough time to get out next year and enjoy all that Bass fishing has to offer. Maybe figure some new locations or some new techniques too

I'm a bit lucky in the sense that December-April is prime time for Winter Steelheading in my area, but last year I was catching 6-10 inch bass by the end of March so who knows, maybe I will bust out my ultralights again. Anything can be fun with the right type of gear in my opinion.

Maybe not the absolute hardest hit I've gotten but most memorable: my first fish on a top water frog. It was pretty memorable as a first regardless, but the best part was that it took me by such a surprise that I fell onto my back turtle style when I set the hook. I'd like to think it's just because I was standing on mud, but if I'm being honest it's probably because I had never seen (or felt!) such a violent surface strike before. My girlfriend saw the entire thing and she could not stop laughing at me!

Everything counts! Especially to people like me who are stuck inside studying for final exams There was a time when I didn't know any better and I was targeting bass similar in size to the one you got. Also, with smaller fish it's pretty easy to foul hook them even if they did commit to the lure/bait. I've belly-hooked Pumpkinseeds on a small 1/8 oz spoon. Heck, I've even hooked a rainbow on the side of the gill plate when float fishing with bait in a lake before.

I see I've got some techniques to perfect for next year. It's going to be a fun learning process. Once again I appreciate the responses and it's really neat hearing about all the different ways people fish in these conditions. Beautiful fish. And yes, from what I can see the cover is similar. The only difference is that pretty much everywhere along the bank the lily pads come straight up to the shoreline, and any larger pieces of open water would be out a bit (last year there were a couple within casting distance). One of the few setups I hear come up time and time again on this site is the texas rig and looks like I can't overlook it anymore, especially if frogs are a no go. Wow, thanks for the awesomely detailed reply! The few spots where I can actually access the edge of the pad field I've had success with swimbaits an in-line spinners, but they tend to be very small fish. You can literally see hundreds of 5-7 inchers chasing lures. I'm guessing go bigger on the lures and/or move along the field to get away from the schools of small fish? I like this though; gives me a lot to think about in how I approach these fields next time.

Don't know if this counts for Black Friday (maybe Cyber Monday...week?), but just picked up a 300 yard spool of 65lb Power Pro for $16 plus tax. Seemed like a good deal so I got a second as a spare haha.

Thanks, will need the luck. Unfortunately no boat so this will present some challenges. Looks like my best bet is looking for spots where it's less thick and trying there with a frog as, to my understanding, a punching rig is ineffective unless it's from a boat. I do have 65lb braid on an Ugly Stik; guess I will find out if it's strong enough come Summer. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for some heartbreaking fishing stories haha.

While I would love to it's mostly a space and money issue at the moment. This is definitely something I would be looking into after I'm done with university and whatnot.

Nice! 2 and 3 in particular had me on the floor. Here's a joke I heard a while ago regarding Steelhead: Three blondes are sitting by the side of a river holding fishing poles with the lines in the water. A Game Warden comes up behind them, taps them on the shoulder and says, "Excuse me, ladies, I'd like to see your fishing licenses." "We don't have any," replied the first blonde. "Well, if you're going to fish, you need fishing licenses," said the Game Warden. "But officer," replied the second blonde, "we aren't fishing. We all have magnets at the end of our lines and we're collecting debris off the bottom of the river." The Game Warden lifted up all the lines and, sure enough, there were horseshoe magnets tied on the end of each line. "Well, I know of no law against it," said the Game Warden. "Take all the debris you want." And with that, he left. As soon as the Game Warden was out of sight, the three blondes started laughing hysterically. "What a dumb Fish Cop," the second blonde said to the other two. "Doesn't he know that there are steelhead trout in this river?"

And THAT would explain most of the issues I had haha. Wish I had a boat.

Thanks for the clarification. If I remember correctly I did try that once but had trouble as I would end up getting caught on the pads when retrieving. Either that or the line would sit on top of the pads and the hook wouldn't sink, though I guess a heavier weight would solve that issue. Is this mostly a close range method, and hence the recommendation for a boat?

Cool catch! Always exciting to fish a new place, and in my opinion is a great way to learn. Oh, and it's a bonus if you nail some fish, which you did!

Exactly this. No matter what I'm fishing for, I love finding spots that most people would just walk by without a second glance. I've gotten this down for Steelheading but am still learning a lot when it comes to Bass and where they can be found.

Wow. Thanks for such a quick response guys! I believe in the area pictured it's maybe 2-3 feet. Some places are shallower than that. I'm not all that familiar with a punching setup; is that basically a bullet weight and a creature bait? YES! I have seen this happen. Before I knew this lake had decent sized bass in it I used to wacky rig powerbait worms through tiny openings in the pads for Pumpkinseed. Sometimes I would see the pads moving as if something big was coming over to take a peak; I always attributed it to either carp or big bull frogs, but now I'm pretty sure they're big bass. No boat unfortunately. I assume the pitch/flip technique would reduce the amount of snags when retrieving? Again, I am not that familiar with some of these techniques so I apologize for my ignorance.

Already looking ahead to next summer on my local lake. Wanted to toss frogs into the lily pads but thinking back, the pads were quite thick in the dead of summer and the one time I tried a frog, it hardly ever seemed to find any water as the pads were so thick. Here's a photo (not mine) of what it looks like in the summer: I'm assuming that Now, I'm assuming the big boys are still hiding under all this green stuff. I would love to toss frogs as it's my favourite method of catching bass (at the moment) but is there another method for getting to these fish that you would go to in this situation?

Any type of small rooster tail type spinner will work. I even got the local stockers just stringing together some dollar store beads and a size 1 French blade with a bit of maribou tied to the hook.

I don't have anything that really comes close to some of the photos already posted in this thread but here are my submissions: Smallest "fat" bass I've caught. Felt like a fish twice his size: Second best "fat" bass I've caught: And my PB is probably my fattest bass yet. I would guess between 5-6 pounds, only got a length measurement of 21 inches: