JG233

I'll have to take my kayak out to Cliff's. Thanks for the info @Dunks N Dinks.

A 4 1/2 lb'er from over the weekend - from the fight, I thought it was going to be way bigger. It pulled off drag and made more than one run.

What? No sun gear Tom?

4 1/2 lb'er from the weekend's trip:

If you're struggling, try to take a minute, give the fish a dunk in the water for 15 sec, bring it back up, and try again.

@Janderson45 I'm used to fishing bottom contact baits. It's probably my preferred approach, so it's not that different for me. The sensitivity with my jig/bc combo is waaaay better than my other rods though. Yesterday I was tossing a football jig into rocks and at submerged boulders. It was pretty effective.

Extra parts man, just chop it off and proceed. (don't listen to me, obviously)

Caught about a dozen today. It was a mix of bass and pickerel. The largest bass went about 2 lbs and didn't seem to have spawned yet. I caught my first fish on a baitcaster, which was also my first fish on a jig: productive day overall. I fished a pond in southeast MA from seven to around two when the wind picked up.

I was planning on fishing in MA on Sunday for the first time this year, but I need to have the brakes on my SUV done and it's going to rain all day Saturday. Bollocks. I've had some bad luck this year so far. First trip out now looks like it's going to happen on Wednesday. Keep the reports coming!

Swimbait fished fast.

Great fish - ignore the people who want to talk size.

I fished Burr Oak from 7 AM - 2 PM yesterday. The water temp peaked at about 58. I threw the entire tacklebox at them and didn't get a bite. I wasn't able to find any emerging weeds. I found some dead pads still hanging around from last year. I marked tons of inactive fish suspending at 6ft in 10-18 ft of water. No dice. I didn't see any real activity up shallow. It was my first time fishing this lake. Not a great start.

Oh man, I'm fishing for a few down there in a couple weeks and I'm hyper excited!

I'm excited to try the morel jig heads for all my ned rigging purposes. I also am going to try to fish jigs more this year so I ordered one of the variety packs.

Lunker City baits are awesome and well-priced. Check out their paddle tails/grubster.

Hola! I created a SE Ohio thread a while back. Happy to post in this one. I live part time in Athens. I haven't been out in my kayak yet since the weather has been so up and down. I do have all my reels spooled up and ready to rock. Keep us updated on your trips this year.

Anyone fishing the area now that it's warming up? I might try Logan this week...

Excellent @TnRiver46. I'll need to charge up my finder, ect...so I think I'll need a real camp. Also, I should say: if any locals are interested, you're welcome to join on a day or two.

Awesome. I've been looking up Norris info all day. There's a campground that looks to be year round up at the top of the lake, near Rocky Hollow.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't have control over the dates since that's when I'm on break from teaching. I'll research the spots you recommended and see if I can find a good option. Otherwise, maybe I don't do the trip.

Any part of TN. I'm about six hours from Knoxville from southeast Ohio, so that seemed to make sense. My PB is a 5.5 LMB. My PB SMB is around 4. I don't need to be super off the grid, I pretty much just want the best fishing possible from my kayak. It can be tough covering water in it over large lakes. Thanks again.

#2

I want to get away and put together a four or five day solo fishing trip in TN around March 15th. I plan on pitching a tent and settling in for a quiet couple days. I want to target both largemouth and smallmouth, but I'm more interested in smallmouth fishing right now. A spot with a good rep for both numbers and size would be ideal--maybe I can even break my PB. Any recommendations would be very appreciated. Fishing a spot that's a couple hundred acres would be ideal. Maybe I can fish smaller sections of bigger lakes though. Let me know what you think. Thanks in advance!

I wanna fish with @A-Jay haha

It takes forever to get anywhere in those Quabbin rentals--ha. It's still great that they have them though.