Way north bass guy

Snuck out this morning for a few hours by myself. Smaller local lake that isn’t known for a lot of monsters, but there’s some good ones in there. Managed a handful of decent smallmouth and largemouth on a squarebill, as well as a couple pike, and got a few more largemouth pitching a Berkley powerbait thief around shallow vegetation.

What a weird night tonight. Went out with the kid for a couple hours before dark. We could do nothing right it seemed. Lost two 3lb smallies on a drop shot, several more the same size on a wacky rig, and too many to count on topwater. Finally, we each caught a couple little fellas on a popper, it was just one of those nights where the hook would not stay in them, and I don’t normally have that happen too often. Oh well, still a nice couple hours outside.

Just typical advertising nowadays. It’s just like literally EVERY truck commercial ever, where they all magically have the “highest towing capacity available” ?.

I Change em all at once. If pitching a Texas rig doesn’t work, I go straight to the gill net. If that fails to produce, next up is dynamite. If that still won’t get em, I’ll try to blow the dam and drain the lake, that usually finds the fish.

I’d say for most creeks and smaller rivers, a 20” smallmouth would be a giant and very rare. Certainly some areas where there’s lots of high nutrient food, or an area where they can migrate to a bigger lake for parts of the year, you might find larger bass, but mostly your gonna find smaller ones, not that there’s anything wrong with fighting a whole bunch of feisty smallies in the current. As for water temps, from shore or wading I’d get either a small pool thermometer or a small digital one like you’d have in your kitchen window with a small length of wire and probe.

Took the wife and kid out for a troll this morning. It was SUPER HOT and very muggy out so we only fished for an hour and then threw the kid overboard for a swim for a bit, but we did bring home a handful of nice fat rainbows for a couple suppers.

If you want simple, here it is ? All I used was a piece of 3/4” plywood cut to the shape of the bow, so it fits between the middle seat and the front, wrapped with some carpet ( the black line in the pic is just gorilla tape to cover the seam in the carpet), and bolted a small length of aluminum angle across the bow and drilled holes in it to mount the two rear motor mount bolts, the front two are drilled and mounted through the edge of the gunwale. This is a super solid, stable and dirt cheap setup for my son and I to get into the small, hard to get to lakes and if I’m fishing solo, I can lay up to a dozen rods across the back of the boat, all ready to go just like in my big boat.

Hit the lake solo last night for a few hours. Started flipping and frogging in the pads while the sun was still high, didn’t get a bunch but got one decent, fat guy. Then as the sun dropped I flew back out to the main lake for smallmouth. Just got set up on a big flat off the side of an island, and in three casts, caught three decent ones on a popper, when a pontoon full of people shut down about 100yds from me. Once I saw the paddles, I knew they weren’t fishing. Idled over, and sure enough, the old guy didn’t check his gas can before heading out, so I lost about 20 min of prime topwater time towing them about 2 miles to their cottage. No biggie though, as I was able to blast back out and hammer a bunch more on top before it got too dark and they shut down again. No monsters, but it was nonstop action and they were all super fat and healthy with every fish jumping about 4 or 5 times each.

Today was my sons 10th birthday. He’s a big fan of Harry Potter, and my wife always makes a big deal out of the cakes, so for dessert tonight we ate the “monster book of monsters”.

I’ve not used a weighted swivel rig yet, so I can’t say for certain what’s going on, but have you tried setting the hook faster. Maybe it’ll make the hook be not quite so deep in their mouth. Maybe also try crushing the barb down a bit with pliers so it’s easier to back out of their yap ?‍♂️

I’m self employed, and have no other employees that work for me at all, and as long as I can physically do the work, that’s the way it’s gonna stay. I worked with my father for over 15 years before he retired, and some years he had 6-8 employees working for him ( we’re stonemasons), and it was always a ridiculous endeavour to hire and keep decent workers for more than a couple weeks, and they were paid very good money too. It seems around my area, nobody can find any kind of labourers. Nobody wants to break any kind of a sweat anymore, they all want to type away on a computer or phone all day and figure they should be paid good money to basically do nothing. Yes, there’s lots of jobs out there that require computer/office skills, but someone’s still gotta build and fix things. It’s gonna be a sad state of affairs in the future if things continue the way they are going.

Your done for, might as well start shipping all your gear to the rest of us here on the forums, just to make sure it gets used properly ?

Went out this afternoon with the kid for a couple hours. Little lake just behind our house, usually we get out there a few times a year with the tinny. First time this year, and they weren’t really all that hot, but we did get a couple dozen little fellas and the kid got the best of the day, right around 3 lbs that smoked a wacky rig off a tree right beside the boat.

I’m surprised a guy like yourself doesn’t want to do all his own electronics installations. I actually enjoy doing it myself, and I also know exactly where every wire, connection and screw is. That way if something needs to be addressed later on ( ie broken transducer), it’s super easy to fix it.

^ This is true in all sorts of things people participate in. I can’t tell you how many guys I play hockey with that have the best of equipment, $1000 skates and $300 sticks etc but I can skate circles around them and they can’t shoot a puck to save their lives. Seems nowadays lots of people have it set in their head that you can only compete with the best of equipment, guess that’s how the companies want us to think though. I’ll take a big old bass on a crappy pole over no bass on the best rod and reel any day.

Careful, that could be a dangerous spiral your entering. Start with the console unit, next thing you know your looking at a new one for the bow, and you might as well get the new mega 360 as well, then there’s the matter if the “old” trolling motor ?.

The humidity we’ve had for several days now finally broke today, so I took the kid out for some downrigging. We were only out for about 2 hours but managed 8 fat rainbows, 2 nice lakers and lost another half dozen or so. Kept a few of the rainbows and had a nice fish fry with visiting family this evening.

This seems like a bit of an odd question, it’s kind of like comparing a truck to a bicycle for price. Honestly, if you can afford a bassboat, I’m pretty sure you can shell out a couple hundred more for a kayak as well and call it done.

Just traded in my 2012 Ram last month for a 2019 Ram 1500 sport. It’s a beautiful truck that rides like a dream and I don’t even feel my 18’6” boat on the back. As a stonemason by trade, it’ll haul a fair good load of rock too!

Yup, no matter how bad it seems to be, there’s always way too many more people with problems that make ours look like absolutely nothing. There’s been times when I’ve been feeling in a bit of a funk about something and then I realize that I’ve got it pretty darn good.

Roll em in flour, bit of salt and pepper and good hot oil and they’d be delicious!

I’d love to help you, but around here I’ve NEVER, EVER seen water that was 90 deg unless it was in a tub.

Have you tried selling your Lowrance to buy another bird? ? Sorry, couldn't help myself. Unfortunately I haven’t had a Lowrance unit in years so I don’t know how the settings are on them, but as an owner of several Helix units, I might be a little biased anyway.