WDE

Very similar to my history.

First bass when I was 13 or 14 if I had to guess, fished frequently over the next few years. Took a very long break and picked it back up at 32, a few months ago. I'm now going 2-4 times a week depending on my work schedule. My wallet suddenly got a lot lighter as a result.

Had a little time to kill before Thanksgiving dinner at my wife's grandparents' place. They've got a little pond on their land, but it's way down and I've never fished it. Caught 8, hooked 10 in an hour and a half. Biggest is in the middle, approached 2lbs.

Where is that located?

I think this is a good question/topic as I recently just started fishing after a ~15-year hiatus. I've got my go-to pond that I have dialed in, and have had tremendous success in pulling in some good sized fish. It's like a magnet, why leave when I know what they want? However, like you, I also want to branch out to other ponds, simply for the sake of practicing different lures.

Apparently Johnson has crappie. At least that's what I assume this is, I've never caught one before. Feisty little bugger though.

Would you mind elaborating on what makes it so difficult? Finnicky fish, poor bank angles, etc?

Johnson. Been meaning to check out Halle, is it public?

Last week. Guessing ~3lbs. Scales are on the Christmas list. Loving the late Fall bite, while slow, I've got them dialed in at this spot. Honrable mention today:

3 today. 1 decent. Going to be interesting next week when the temps drop into the 50s.

3 today. 1 decent. Caught my previous one's sibling.

Slow day, very few bites, but I pulled this guy in on a lipless ghost shad rat-l trap(which has been my go-to lure in this pond for the past month). And it's a PB(I'm guessing 3lbs--other estimations welcome--I have yet to buy scales), so I'm happy. Apologies for the angle, a passerby snapped it.

Pulled in another PB. It's nice to start out so low . Passerby snapped the pic, high school kid. "I didn't know there was bass in here!". He assumed 3lbs+, I'll agree with him. I really need to get scales. Ghost shad crankbait still. I'm very lucky I was able to land him. He hit the back treble that so happened to be missing a barb. Didn't even feel like a fish, I thought I was reeling in another freshwater clam(I'm really beginning to hate those damned things). Hopped down into the mud and yanked him out.

I think it's a fair question, especially for my sake as I'm looking to upgrade from my AG Black Max around Christmas, or luck out on a sweet Black Friday deal.

Went Johnson for a couple hours today. Got a couple dinks. Bite has cooled quite a bit on the crankbait. Tossed a spinnerbait around for a while and they weren't interested. I suppose the time change and the dip in temperature has them transitioning? I guess it's time to try out the jerkbait and/or topwater. Two lures I've never had success with.

Work and real life got in the way this past week, but I did want to share that I've once again upped my PB. Happening in small intervals, but I'm not complaining. Same fish 3 different angles. I'll exclude the selfies I attempted. Apparently my arms aren't long enough.

Wanted to go to a new pond today, but I've been having such good luck on such an easy setup so I went back to Johnson. Caught 4 bass, including another PB(bottom two pics). Two biggest I pulled out: Went to set the hook on the smallest one(couldn't have been more than a quarter pound), and I flipped him out of the pond and he came off the lure, 5 feet over my head and he landed on the grass 10 feet behind me.

It is.

Good call, thank you. Google images returns a very similar image to gizzard shad. I know nothing of these type of fish, other than the largemouths have been having fun on my shad flavored crankbait this week.

Probably a totally noob question. I'm calling it a bluegill/bream. Co-worker insists that it's neither. Caught in a pond in the southeast. Secreted a nasty slime. Caught two like this similar size on a lipless crankbait. (Mods move if necessary)

Went back to Johnson--wasn't planning on going anywhere today--but I got bored after work and wanted a quick fix. Fish were noticeably less active than my previous two times. Pulled one in after about 15 minutes, half a pound, on the same rig I've been using this week. Fished another uneventful 15 or 20 minutes and headed home.

14lb mono on a baitcaster. Medium/quick retrieval alternating, tip up. The pond is so shallow that even with the tip up I'm still skimming the bottom about 3-5 feet out. Got two more last night. Plus two palm sized bream that actually hit it, and 3 fist sized freshwater clams. I'm guessing the bass were in the 2-2.5lb range, both bigger than the ones I caught the night before.

The thought didn't even cross my mind. I wasn't prepared to bring home fish anyhow. I'll just piggyback this post with these pics. Short story short, I went back to the same pond this afternoon and pulled in two bigger fish(I'm guessing in the 2-2.5lb range) around the same time as yesterday on the same rig. Not pictured are two palm sized bluegill and 3 fist sized freshwater clams that I managed to hook. So that's back to back days in raising my PB. Dead fish was where I left him. Thank you all for the words of encouragement, by the way.

Indeed, and that's why I'm not beating myself up over it too hard. I figure his corpse will provide for other fish, turtles, or birds in the long run. Circle of life and such.

Note: This report isn't about catching giant, big, or even ones that might be considered decent bass by one's own standards. This report is about finding confidence in fishing and regaining an immediate desire to get back out there. I have been out of the fishing game for a long time. Refer to this thread if you wish for a little history on my fishing background: http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/181804-re-discovering-a-hobby-15-20-years-later/#comment-2048709 Carrying on, I've been in a bit of a slump the past couple times I've been out. Either missing hooksets or just not getting a bite at all on baits that worked in the past--just overall feeling discouraged. I still told myself that I would catch something as I was pulling out of the driveway this afternoon. ~80 degrees outside, just had a cold front and rain come through late last week. But water and outside temps climbed a back up a bit. I had had fair luck pulling fish out of a certain part of this pond in the past. It's in a sports/recreation multiplex park kind of venue. In this park there are 3 ponds, my primary pond was overrun with people, which usually I'm the only one out there--this specific spot in a slackwater cove away from the two giant fountains. So I went to the front of the park with two adjacent shallow ponds. At this point it was 5:15 or so, with the sun diving into the horizon. Fish were active, that much I could tell. I tried tossing a weightless green pumpkin Senko on my spinning rig, a worm I still have yet to find the magic in. And a shad colored lipless H20 Express crankbait/rat-l trap type lure on my casting rig. Got my first bass at 5:45 on the lipless crankbait. I had cast out where fish were breaking and began reeling in, looked over to my right and saw a swirl right at the bank so I began quickly retrieving and abandoning the cast. My lure stopped retrieval, and I assumed I got hung up on a tree limb. I yanked again to dislodge and saw the white belly of a LMB, so I brought him in. I'm being generous in assuming it was a pound: Fish were still swirling all over. I could see them running and bumping(and missing) my lure for the next hour or so. Which was somewhat aggravating, but I was having fun. I caught a fish, and achieved my goal for the day. It was twilight now, ~6:30. I moved to the other pond closest to my car and started casting in a little cove where I saw some activity. I threw out my final cast and felt a bump. Tried to set the hook and yanked the lure out of the water("oh well"), as soon as it hit the water again a fish cranked it. Once again, being generous--estimating 1.5 pounds. I snapped the pic and went to pull my lure out. He swallowed it. I began panicking, because I didn't want to kill this fish. I pulled out the pliers and began surgery by the illumination of the baseball field's lights and the dying sun. Trebles were caught on the gills, it was a bloody mess, I cut the line. Dunked him to give him some water and brought him back out. He was still flopping around and slipped out of my hand and the lure dislodged. But the damage was done, I released him and he tried to swim, so I sat on the bank and watched him for a few minutes. He flopped one more time and I picked up my stuff and left. I'm assuming he died, but I do hope that he recovered. In summation: it was the best day I've had in terms of size since picking the rods back up after such a long break. And I nailed two fish on a lure I hadn't had previous success on. Confidence is back. It was the worst because I couldn't save the fish, that was potentially my PB(even as small as it was, don't laugh).