starkeer

Pretty cool night last night. I really did not want to go out in the kayak and deal with the wind this morning but I really wanted to fish. I went to a nice beach which forms a point on a metro lake and casted from shore.. This was at 1am since I worked till midnight. I ended up catching 7 bass, 3 of them were nice, around 3lbers. I had almost no expectations and I was pretty thrilled to catch anything. All fish were caught on white spinnerbait.

I am sure this has been covered but I am ready to throw some larger cranks for the fall bite and I would like to limit getting bit off as much as possible. I fish waters that have both large pike and muskies. What do some of you guys use for a leader? How long? What knot do you tie?

Maybe there would be more if they didn't keep trying to literally bite off more than they can chew like this musky I found belly up this morning haha

What rod do you throw the DT14 on? I've been going through my gear trying to figure out what rod I want to throw deep crank on. Thanks

Thanks for all the info guys, I feel like I am doing the right things but I like the paying attention to what the bank consists of. I'll just keep casting, moving, and learning. Hopefully, I will run into some fish soon.

I've been struggling to put together a consistent pattern the last few weeks. 5 days ago it seemed like the bass were starting to move shallow as the weather cooled off, now the past two days its been a lot of shallow casting for absolutely nothing. Any help on how to eliminate water from a kayak without electronics would be helpful. I am fishing smaller lakes (<500 acres), and they seem to mostly be lacking feeder creek mouths or easily identifiable staging areas.

You got me haha, just ordered one and had to add several other large profile baits gearing up for the fall bite.

Fall pattern seems to not be far away. I was out this morning and it was 51 degrees when I got on the water, and some leaves are starting to change.. I was able to catch more fish on reaction baits this morning (4 on lipless cranks, 2 on a spinnerbait) than I have the last month combined. Biggest fish was maybe 3 pounds but all in less than 10 feet of water. I am ready for more fish to move up shallow.

I had never caught a fish on a frog and was determined this summer, I had one tied on pretty much every time I fished and have missed every hit I have had until today, the patience paid off as I pulled out this fat pig. Heavy rod, 50lb braid, everything worked just like it was supposed too.

Is the bass fishing any good in Utah? It is looking increasingly likely that I will be moving there in the next few months. I will be moving from Minnesota. I will have a kayak and most likely be looking to buy a boat in the next couple years. Will I be disappointed and have to learn to fly fish? Thanks,

I was in a very similar situation when I moved here 3 summers ago and it took me about a year before I started to find fish. Renting a kayak/canoe and getting out on the Minneapolis Chain is always a good way to go, you can rent one right on Calhoun and then make your way through the whole chain. Otherwise, the river can be your friend, find public parks that have lots of shore access and work the entire shore, I've done really well this summer with squarebills, topwater (spooks and whopper ploppers), and chatterbaits. Also, the same thing that everyone is going to tell you but try your best to fish peak times, early morning (getting out around 5am) or around sunset. It really is just about exploring and fishing all the spots you can find that look fishy until you start finding fish.

I really struck out this morning. Got out on the Minneapolis chain and did absolutely nothing on some normally productive spots. I then went up north to go out on the Mississippi and did absolutely nothing there as well. Probably the least productive day of the season for me. I was out by 5am and it was already 81 degrees, I am thinking the heat kept the fish in a sluggish mood even though I was fishing normally productive times, and spots.

It seems like everyone has a favorite bait to use, or style of fishing. For example, I love fishing topwater (duh) because it is thrilling to watch a bass explode on a bait and see the strike up close, but I also love fishing a wacky rig and seeing the line jump, or watching the line move through the water just knowing i'm going to be able to set my hook in to a fish. So my question is what is your favorite style of fishing and what makes it so exciting to you?

Not a noticeable difference, I was using a St Croix medium spinning rod with a Plueger President reel.

I caught 11 river smallies on the Bone 75 Whopper Plopper this morning.I really liked it, I did not have any issues with line twist or anything like that, I felt like my hookup ratio was better than the normal Whopper Plopper sizes (90 and 110) and when I did hook fish they were hooked solid.

I've only thrown them briefly on a morning when the topwater bite was not on. I am going to throw them again tomorrow morning for some river smallies, we will see how it goes.

Definitely a topwater addict, spooks and whopper ploppers are my drug of choice. I've been trying really hard this year to not let my love of topwater keep me from catching fish. It's regularly the first thing I grab but I've gotten pretty good at putting it down if I don't get any hits.

What kind of details does everyone keep in a log? I recently started logging all my trips and am curious if I am missing any details.

Was able to get a new Whopper Plopper 75's off a rep the other day. According to him they will be released sometime this fall.

I have been out on the Minneapolis Chain the last few nights and done pretty well, probably caught about 30 fish between the last two nights but fish would only hit the wacky rig. I was able to end last night with this 21". No scale but definitely a healthy fish, put up a good fight on my medium light rod as well

One of my favorite local lakes has been in the grips of a carp spawn for almost a month now. The carp are all in shallow and making a huge commotion. Has anyone experienced anything like this? The fishing has been really down. Anything I can do besides go elsewhere? Thanks in advance

Every time I've been out bank fishing Lake of the Isles in the past 3 weeks it seems like the carp are spawning, at least they are thrashing around making a commotion in the shallows. This has been ongoing since around May 20. Has anyone experienced anything similar? It seems strange to me that it has gone on so long and in my opinion really disrupts the bass fishing.

The spawn has probably been done for about 2-3 weeks. It was just infuriating to see so many haha

This morning my dad and I were kayak fishing a small lake (700 acres) that has short, small channel, probably a quarter mile and never more than 20 yards across, that connects it to Lake Michigan. We did pretty well in the small lake but once we paddled out the channel we caught absolutely nothing. The tough part was we could see literally ten's of fish, easily recognizable as bass, and some big, chunky ones mixed in too. They had absolutely no interest in anything we were throwing and we pretty much threw the entire kitchen sink at them. My question is why these bass were cruising from one lake to the other with no interest in feeding? Is it a water temperature thing? This was at about 9am on a cloudy, windy morning around 70 degrees. Please help me understand why I could not catch any of these fish haha

That is probably what I am going to go with, Plano box in the bottom of the backpack, feign ignorance if they pull it out, I'll pick it back up on my return if they give me a hard time.