TnRiver46

Awesome catch! From a pond? Even more impressive. If only that fish could talk about how he ended up there i know some places around TN that you would have a shot. And the next month would be prime time!

Minnow trap. Small bait swims out of a cast net

FLW allows nets. BASS, MLF and BPT do not allow nets. I’ve fished many years with and without nets. Sometimes you lose them while trying to net, other times you lose them because you didn’t have a net. The latter is much more frequent in my experience. Black bass aren’t so bad without a net, it’s the big catfish and other toothy monsters when it’s really handy to have one

The town of butler is under watauga too, old crow medicine show has a song about it. “My home town....... is a half mile down....... there’s a half mile of water all around, all around!”

About what time should I show up?

Awesome!

Congrats on a great day @nmatthes

The trick worm and finesse worm from zoom do some very subtle shimmying

Catching things twice would be very tricky I would imagine. Just like fishing

Working, fishing, cleaned out a shed, carport, and an outdoor closet Next time just replace the hubs! It cost me like $10 extra dollars and saved hours. Although most are probably faster than me

Trick worm wins every contest it enters in my book

I decided I would try to prove to myself the definition of insanity for the 500th time by trying to catch a black bass with a spinnerbait. It still rings true! It never ceases to amaze me how I can throw one for hours, days, weeks and not catch a bass. And the very SECOND that I pick up a plastic worm I start catching. I guess that means, by definition, I am insane. Anywho, back to the fishing. I started way down the river from where I typically go and tried the spinnerbait on a shallow flat loaded with logs that dropped off steep under the boat. Everytime I would let the spinnerbait flutter down the drop a white bass would railroad it. It was more of the big 2 lb “blue tail” males and they were hitting and fighting incredibly hard. At one point I decided to fire the bait down current, parallel to the drop and something hits hard and starts head shaking, big wide shakes. And I can see it way down there, looks olive/brown and slightly over 2 feet long. It takes off into the fast swirling deep current and takes lots of line off a baitcaster. I’m thinking I have a 6-7 lb smallmouth and I start nervously freaking out trying to decide when to reach down and ready the net. Well my olive brown fish slightly over 2 feet was a channel catfish, and a really fast one at that! Of course I fished a plastic worm and caught 3 black bass and missed more. There were some crazy cloud formations on the way in

I don’t but I bet I should. I got a 20” smallmouth on the first cast right out of the package with one and it bent 3 of the 6 hooks

Prayers sent

Rapala makes another lipless with a rounder shape that I’ve caught lots of big smallmouth and nice walleye with. I can’t remember what is called........ edit: ripping rap is what I was thinking of, it’s my favorite lipless . The ones side by side in the pic. I’ve never done much damage with the more elongated rapala lipless

Corona boredom: experimenting with different lures. Since I’m not fishing with my buddies and since there’s 500 billion white bass right near my house, I figured I would try some stuff. I am beyond useless with a spinnerbait and the wind was whitecapping with sun so I thought it would be a great time to attempt catching a black bass with it. Yet another fail but white bass were railroading it. So then I caught them vertical jigging a chartreuse grub, some of these were big 2 lb males fighting crazy hard. Then I caught some with a jerkbait, then some jigging a new spoon I found at academy a long time ago and forgot I had. I also got a graphite splinter from a rod, that was a first. Hard to get those out! My golfing buddy always warned me of those, he said the flagstick could get you