The Baron

Man, @BluegillsTightlines that’s a rough day of fishing when you go to work to get away from it. But I’ve been there. lol We had rain all night Friday-Saturday noon then spotty showers blowing through on a 10-20mph west wind. Wes and I went out around 2pm and enjoyed a cool, windy outing with some spotty rain. We’re in cold front conditions now - it was 57 degrees yesterday afternoon (water temps 68). It’s 42 this morning! Wes was the bass guy yesterday, I was the pike master. I really wanted to fish a whopper plopper but it was too windy, so I caught one bass on a DT-14 but we found them shallow so I switched to a white and chartreuse spinnerbait. The pike loved it so I spent my time shaking off 1-2# pike with a few similar bass mixed in. Wes only caught a few bass on his underspin paddletail, but all were bigger than mine including a 3.4#. We were very glad to have our rain suits for warmth and the couple of showers that we got.

Yea, he shot past 6ft. tall over the summer - he’s not even 15yo yet. Here’s my little boy picking me up at the dock yesterday. 🤪😊

A chilly north wind today, water temps dropped from mid 70’s to 69 in just a week! Wes and I tried a lake he’s never been to and I haven’t fished yet this year. A very laid back outing, just enjoying the cool weather and I was hoping for that one good bite on a glide bait. A buddy who grew up nearby said the lake used to be a very good for bass then pike took it over 15-20 years ago, but apparently the bass are making a comeback. I fished the glide bait for about an hour with no bites. Wes caught a couple small pike and lost a couple inexpensive baits to others before I “suggested” he should put a leader on. We got into more shallow/weedy water so I started throwing a buzzbait - one of my favourite lures to fish. I caught one small largemouth as did Wes, then I called the shot on a little point of pencil reeds in about 2-3ft. of water. Wes caught a small pike then I caught a nice bass off it. I didn’t weight the bass, was probably about 3#. Not long after Wes had another oopsie and accidentally hit the cast button when he tried to flick weeds off his bait. Another spool of FC Sniper cut off prematurely. ☹️

Agreed with @Pat Brown - I haven’t been flipping creature baits much this year, but especially on target flipping (a blowdown or hole in the weeds) I get a lot of bites on the fall. I find it a tricky balance between feeding line so the bait falls straight down, but not being slack and missing those immediate bites. That’s a chilly night - I’d expect your water temps will start dropping and bass will be on the move soon, headed to hard cover that’s holding heat (logs and rocks). We’re already seeing some weed areas turning brown up here, and bass will be gone to green weeds are hard cover.

God bless both of you. And a reminder for me to quite whining about slow fishing or the weather.

Welcome aboard! I’ll be looking forward to some fishing pics from you. Come see is in the Latest Catch Pics thread. 🙂

Welcome!

Another couple days of slow fishing this weekend. Fished dawn until 1pm with my son and a friend of his on Saturday. I only caught a few 1.5-2.5# largemouth, my son caught a nice smallie that was long and surprisingly light at 3.4# (take a look at the photo and tell me what you think the two dents could be from?). Wes’ buddy caught only one 1# largemouth early on. The boys are both 14 and when the fishing proved to be slow they got acting goofy, not listening and then Wes was whining about how hot it was (it wasn’t hot). His friend was casting very aggressively and thought all the bluegill nibbles were big bass he had to violently hookset then say oh, I missed it that was big. I tried to coach him a bit, but he didn’t listen so I gave up and concentrated on not drowning anyone. 🙄😒#yerbugginme Sunday I took a good friend and his 13yo. son to a favourite small lake. My friend used to fish the lake with his dad, and his son had only been there once before when he was young. They were great guests and it was a pleasure to take them to experience that together. His son has a great sense of humour and despite slow fishing he stayed in good spirits. We had some good natured ribbing when he declared it a tournament and kept changing the rules when I was winning. It was a weird day and seemed I caught the first and only fish at each new spot, then there’d be no other bites so we’d move to a new weed bed or hump and I’d do it again even when I hung back and let my guests take a few casts first.🤷🏼‍♂️ I caught 1/2 doz. including one solid bass and a pike that could swim through the eye of a needle - he had some gill damage (not from me) and was obviously struggling, but still fought like a pike does. My buddy got 1 pike and unfortunately his son struck out (had one pike bite him off, that was it). I’ll be trying again to get his young lad out for a better day. 🤞🏻

For sure @Bluebasser86 writes a good update.👍🏻 but I’ve got the same thought on tournaments. That said, my son wants to fish a tournament so maybe I will someday just to say I have. Maybe if I do that with no plans to win and just enjoy the experience, it will be fun. But it could end up like my sporting clays career - tried one tournament just to see what it was like, zero expectations and I shot very well. So then thought I’m good at this and as soon as I thought I’d get serious, that’s about when both engines caught fire and my tail fin fell off… ✈️ 🔥 😆 @Aaron_H My chatterbait setup uses copoly line and a MH/mod crankbait rod. I’ve had great success landing with with that setup. 👍🏻 Crazy to say you lost maybe a 6# but it wasn’t one of the really big ones - a 6# up here would be the fish of the season, if not my life. 🤪

Oh, great - my local shop sells them too. d**n it. 😂

@TnRiver46 There are so many frogs with bells and whistles now, it’s almost too much. But I was talking with the owner of the very excellent local fishing store I frequent about frog fishing and he was talking about the Spro paddletail legged frog as a great search bait. He wasn’t trying to sell me one, but I said you talked me into it I’ll try one. It’s got very sturdy hooks, casts very well due to its weight and even though I thought that bowfin destroyed it everything went back together like new. I’m not sure if I have any other Spro frogs, but I’m impressed with the quality.

I’m late to the party - looks like I missed some good fishing. @Bluebasser86 Congratulations to Lake, on the board on what looked like a tough bite. And to you for the win, of course. 👍🏻 @Dominat0r Sounds like you moved to a good spot, when you can fish every day.😎 I can’t remember where I left off here… oh yeah, was out last Saturday and Wes absolutely annihilated me at frog fishing. Not sure I posted about that yet, it might have been too traumatic. lol We went out to a new lake yesterday afternoon-evening. It was too hot at the start and the first bay we chose was dead, but cooled a bit and the bite got decent after about 6pm catching 5-6 each. I caught my first and biggest on a spinner bait, then was fishing a Spro Flappin’ Frog. It’s a pretty neat bait, like a more subtle buzzbait in open water or fish it right in the pads like any other frog. I caught a few on it, the first was about a 5# bowfin that gave me a great fight. No pics though, he spit my frog in the net and the hooks got very tangled up. I thought about picking him up for a quick photo, but he didn’t like that and I didn’t want to mess with him when there was hooks in the net so I just reversed the net in the water and let him go. 👋🏻

Same here - 7” is about my cutoff for photos. 😝 My 14yo. son watches YouTube videos, but seldom finishes one - his attention span is about 5 minutes max. thanks to endless scrolling of TikTok type clips.🙄 Thankfully his attention span on the water is much longer and, even with no livsecope on our boat (lol), he’s getting quite good at fishing. He put on a frog clinic Saturday morning - I ended up watching his technique/cadence and having him give me tips, because the way he was working his frog blew me out of the water on numbers. Still young enough that I had to unhook most of fish though. lol

A great day, for sure. Always good karma to help out another angler who’s been friendly..

lol - Not so fast @ol'crickety… I started with a fluke Tuesday evening. Caught one pike while Wes had 3-4 blowups and landed one/lost the monster bass, so I switched.😊 That said, from a canoe it’s probably easier to get a hook in with a fluke. But yeah @TnRiver46 I was throwing (have thrown before) a fluke on a 1/8oz. belly weighted swimbait hook and also sometimes weightless. It comes over pads surprisingly well and sometime when you let it sink into a hole… 💥 😎