Jleebesaw

A friend and I were fishing along a thick weed line. He gets a big bite. As hes fighting it, I can tell it's big but hadn't seen it. It surfaced once and I didnt see it. I told him I didnt think it was a bass, it seemed too big. It surfaces again, i still dont see it, but he starts screaming. "Its a bass, it's a bass, its huge!" So now I'm watching. It comes close to the surface again and i get a glimpse of it. I could have sworn it was a bass. So now we are both screaming and getting crazy. I get the net and it turns out to be a catfish about 2 and a half feet long. We laugh a bit and he holds it up for a pic. Holds it by its mouth like a bass. The closest boat to us was about 100 yards away. Close enough to hear us screaming about a bass and see him holding a big fish. We move to a spot around the corner, and when we come back by theres 3 boats on that weed line. We still laugh about that every time we go to that lake.

Or, skip alex bay and go to chippawa bay. It's a short drive from black lake. That's where I usually go if I want big smallies. I fish ogdensburg and waddington too, but chippawa is really close to black lake. Chippawa gives you the option of staying in the bay if its windy. Theres some nice LM in there. Or you can get in the main river. If you go downstream toward morristown there is some crazy smallmouth fishing. I watched KVD hammer them on an island there a few years ago. He sat there for 2 hrs culling fish. That's been a good waypoint for me!

I would stick to the south/ west end of the lake. The end with the state launch. It's usually better fishing. Maybe just easier fishing. Right now the lake is full of algae. It's the typical green stuff that always fills black lake up. It's not the dangerous stuff. So dont be alarmed if you go there and see that it looks like pea soup. I was there Saturday morning. I started fishing just before daylight and caught 7 bass before 9am. One smallmouth was a dink, but the rest of them were all over 17". One LM was 20.5". I should have weighed that one. There is a good community hole almost directly across from the boat launch. If you have a map, just stay above big island. There is a rock pile with a flag pole on it and a couple nice humps nearby. That's a good starting spot for you. You will catch a couple there to get the skunk off you. Then you can explore from there. I got a LM there and the dink smallie by that Sunday. The rest i got on the 3 small islands between that spot and the launch. The fishing is good on black lake. Like someone else said, rock piles and islands are the ticket. Beating the bank is tempting, but offshore is more productive here. It's a weedy lake and most of the bays are choked up.

If you dont see a difference between pre loaded maps and navionics, you probably dont have sonar charts turned on. When I first got navionics it didnt look very good. Maybe a little better than the pre loaded, but not great. Somehow I stumbled on to the sonar chart and it makes a huge difference. Somewhere in the menu or options for navionics there will be a place to turn sonar charts on or off. Make sure that's on. It will be like night and day. I have been on both lake George and the st.lawrence, the navionics charts are very detailed. Especially the river. They are more like nautical charts than topo maps. I dont even know what some of the stuff is!

I know they will be here in new york in august for the next 2 years. Not that that helps you.

You're right about that bass looking skinny. It's good it was able to get your lure in its mouth. May have saved its life. That's a pretty big bass. She would be a beauty at full weight. Nobody wants skinny girls.

You just leave this stuff on your hands all day? I wipe my hands off a lot while fishing!

My lowrance units and my old hummingbirds did the same thing. If the boat is not moving, side imaging does not work. There was no fuzziness, but you are getting a constant fine return. So basically, it slowly turns into blended vertical lines. If the boat moves at all, (even a very slow drift) those fine returns will be displaying new information on the screen, appearing as though it is working. This gives many people the impression that it works when they are sitting still, but it is not. The displayed returns are not accurate. You can't slow the display enough to get accurate representations of those returns unless you are moving 1.5-2mph. 2d sonar works at a standstill because of the broad signal returns. This information is pretty easy to find. All major manufacturers have literature available that explains sonar. It is somewhat complicated, but there is plenty of well written information out there. It's not something easily explained on a forum.

I will second the Zara spook. I've caught a lot of smallies on those.(LM too) I tend to use the super spook junior more though. It's a bit smaller. 3.5" I think, but it has a rattle/clicker in it that i like and i think it helps. But the smallies dont hesitate to grab the 5" spook, that's for sure. Even small bass hit it. Just like most species of fish, sometimes they hit lures that i dont even think they could actually eat. I think fish have eyes bigger than their mouths sometimes.

That's a great picture!

Bowfin always break my heart. Every time, I think I have a big bass on the line! They are fun to catch though. I know a lot of guys hate them, but I'll take that fight anytime.

I have caught many bass and pike on bass jigs without trailers. I used to fish jigs a lot, with and without trailers. Trailers add to the profile for sure. They also provide added movement. Sometimes less is more though. Just like downsizing worm sizes, sometimes when the bite is slow, smaller profiles can get a bite when a bigger one wont. My experiance with fishing in general is that there are very few "always" or "nevers".

It just happened to me last Sunday. I didnt even know it happened. We fished a couple of humps. We were there for about a half hr. When we were ready to move I went to strap my rods down and one was missing. At least it was a relatively cheap rod and real. BPS rod. The real was an abu garcia that I have had for years. It wasnt very expensive, but I really liked that real. I bought a sweet abu garcia revo sx and a fenwick elite tech. That's my new dropshot rig. I can't wait to try it out tomorrow. Probably get skunked on the most expensive rod and real I've ever owned!

It might be getting into night mode. I had a hook unit that would do that sometimes. On the main option screen where you go to turn it off, there is a night mode option.

I have been fishing for as long as I can remember. My father was a typical northern angler. We would fish for bullheads and perch in the spring. Then we would move on to pike in the early summer. Through the summer dad didnt fish much. Most of the good eating fish are caught in the spring and winter. Dad always fished for food, not just for fun. We didnt have big boats when I was growing up and electronics were something rich people had, so we didnt do much walleye fishing. We mostly bank fished or used canoes. Then during the winter we would ice fish for pike, perch, and walleye. It wasnt until I was 12 or 13 years old that I started targeting bass. My friends and I would go to local lakes and rivers. We mostly bank fished because I had the only canoe and there was usually 4 or 5 of us going. I got my first boat at 16. It was a 14ft v bottom with a 10 horse. I dont remember specific equipment, but I always had good rods and reels and plenty of tackle. My father had heavy equipment and I had to work from a pretty young age. Dad was happy to buy fishing stuff for me as payment. Its safer than giving a 16 year old cash!

I used to have the flying lure. I still say that was a good bait. That sucker would go right under docks and tree branches. It was a crappie killer. I would buy it again if I saw it.

That hospital is near where I live. Its somewhere around Tupperware lake ny. I read the article associated with this pic a month or so ago. The one surgeon said the weirdest one he ever did was to remove a hook from a guys thingy. Who knows how that came to happen. It's the only hospital anywhere near several popular lakes in a tourist area.

That should work fine. That's a common way to fish craws. I try to use as light of a weight as I can while still getting it to the bottom. As long as you dont have much current you should be golden. As far as taking off the claws goes, I have heard the same thing but I think its BS. They eat craws on their own, claws and all. Those small 2.5-3 inch craws I use for bait are defenseless against a bass. I dont think the claws make a bass look twice. I have always left the claws on and have had some really good days. I think I'm going to get some craws sometime to use. I haven't done it in several years.

I carolina rig them basically. Use a fixed weight about a foot above a dropshot hook through the tail. Often times it's just a splitshot on the line. I fish a pretty big river though, so in places with lots of current or in deaper water, i will use an actual carolina rig with the bullet weight, swivel, and bead. Just slowly drag it along the bottom. It will run around and jump, doing most of the work for you. It wont burrow into any rocks unless you let it sit too long. Or you have some big old lobsters. It's a great way to catch smallies. They love craws.

Tubes in greens and browns. 3 to 5 inch curly tail grubs in greens and browns. Tubes in green and brown. Paddle tail swimbaits. Again 3 to 5 inches. Use colors close to natural baitfish in your water. I use blue gill imitations. Tubes in greens and browns. Dark colored spinnerbaits with gold Colorado blades. Rapala original floating lure in gold and black. Whatever your choice is for topwater. They hit any topwater lure when the conditions are right.(this is my favorite time) Oh, tubes in greens and browns too.

Up in here in northern ny it's like that too. I know a lot of guys who get irritated about catching bass while walleye fishing. I've never heard of anybody killing the bass unless they were taking them home to eat. But I hear walleye fisherman talking about 6lb smallies like they are rock bass or something. Pretty crazy. I can't imagine not smiling ear to ear when bringing in a big old bass, even if I was targeting something else. Hell, i catch walleye while bass fishing all the time. I dont get mad. I'm happy to fry up some walleye. Now northerns and muskie.....

I like a carolina rig too. A lot of smallmouth fishing for me is roaming big, shallow, offshore flats and humps. My go to starting baits are lipless cranks and carolina rigged plastics. I'll fan cast those around. The nice thing about a c-rig is that you can fish it somewhat fast or very slow. Just another thing to help you put together a pattern.

I have it on my phone for ice fishing. Works well. It's the exact same image as the navionics on my boat so i like it.

I live in new york and the average smallie is bigger than the average largemouth. That's what first got me into fishing them over LM. I fish for both but have never caught a LM over 5lbs. I have caught many smallies in the 5-6.5lb range. On top of that, I have way to much money in my electronics to not use them. Finding smallies really gives me a chance to put those graphs to work. They are harder to find, that's another reason I prefer them.

They are all just selling stuff.