LrgmouthShad

Not a fan of dock talk. I stay as quiet as possible at the ramp and intentionally try and wait until the ramp is clear of anybody before I go there. Whenever someone asks me how I did, I try and downplay it as much as possible.

Is what I thought yesterday evening when I observed two fishermen pretty close to each other. One in a kayak and the other in a nice looking bass boat. Both were chucking gigantic swimbaits around two points in the same general area. This was a different boat ramp than I’m used to fishing, but I had made up in my mind that I wanted to check out these two points when I hit the water. But these two boats were fishing there, so I naturally I decided to go somewhere else. I came back a short bit later and graphed the points and didn’t see much of anything. That’s when I realized that I really shouldn’t pay attention to those guys. Yeah maybe they’ve figured out something with their huge swimbait - and another guy once was very eager to tell me at another boat ramp that he caught a 9lber on a swimbait in the same region of the lake - but I decided that this is their game as of right now, and I’m certainly not going to copy. If I start noticing that some guys are catching much bigger bass than me, and they all are throwing swimbaits, then sure, maybe I take a look at getting some. But in my mind, one of these guys might catch a 9 on a swimbait but there is likely another guy somewhere on the water that catches the same quality fish on similar stuff as to what I throw. Just the way I think. Feel free to share your thoughts

@Catt you gonna be alright? Guy called you a bozo. He didn’t even have enough respect to call you a cuckoo Cajun

What’s this??? A Texan smallmouth mixed in with a couple largemouth???

Most of the time I believe that if you are casting from the bank, if you can see them, there’s a good chance they can see you I literally used to creep up onto walls surrounding a reservoir and intentionally crouch instead of stand on top of them.

Someone introduced me to Mushroomhead. They played QWERTY for me, and it’s not usual that I take to a song so quickly. It’s artistic and bold. Very well done. Won’t link here because the song is quite explicit but anyways, there you go.

So you’re set on docks? I like em too. I would be skipping both a jig and a t-rig under

Others may say differently but IME, fishing is as good during the day as it is at night. There are other advantages to fishing at night though. My favorite is that people won’t come over to fish what I’m fishing. Within like half a cast of my kayak. Can’t tell you how much that has happened ?. I’m about to tell anyone that tries to do that to beat it.

Well I started using 1/2oz tungsten weights a lot because @Cbump uses em quite a bit and then @Catt tells me to pay attention to rate of fall and then Terry Oldham in a jig video says he likes to use heavy weights when the water is hot…. So basically after all these recommendations I said okay, I’ll give it a go and found out that a 1/2oz works pretty good right now. As good or better than a light weight. I’ll still keep light weights on me. Basically right now I run two Texas rig rods. Three if you include punching. One with a light weight and one with a heavy weight. I’ll use one or the other however I feel like it

Here to confess that my PB is also from a private lake. But the average size bass there was like 12” and the second biggest I caught from there prior to PB was 2.5lbs. Weird. You would always hear about DD or near-DD fish living there though. Just stories.

There’s already so much free chicken in this thread that I don’t feel obligated to add anything else. If somebody’s committed to learning their body of water and not the latest trending YouTube video or what x pro tells you to do, then it’ll happen. I been on my local lake for like 3ish months after moving here in Marchish. I have plenty of time, and I can’t complain so far.

I would just like to add that the best way to find bass is to fish for them. What do I mean by this? I do spend a good bit of time map studying navionics and making waypoints and looking for hard spots and cover and all that. That's all great stuff. But nothing tells you better that there is a bass somewhere than to have one bite your lure. I have so many spots that I've found on lakes around here whether through map study or scanning or otherwise thinking they would be the juice... only for a lot of them to be complete duds for me. You gotta put a bait in the water

Oh my lord. too many. Sometimes I make my own but I go between zorro's, booyah coverts, stanley, megabass, trophy bass co's, nichols, and a little strike king and war eagle. I own a ridiculous amount of spinnerbaits. I also modify most of them out of the package

Bassresource has provided me with all sorts of concepts on how to catch fish but I try to first and foremost be a student of the bass and to learn my bodies of water. I will, more often than I’d like to admit, go against something that I just preached on here two weeks ago

Ditto. Photos from Cedar Gap Park boat ramp on Stillhouse All hydrilla though. Almost looks nasty here doesn’t it?

You tried a spinnerbait yet? Saw other people mention them. A spinnerbait is my favorite lure and pads is probably my favorite type of cover to fish them in. frog, spinnerbait, light texas rig, and a light punching rig/heavyish texas rig - something like what @TriStateBassin106 mentioned is about all I use in pads. If I was smart I’d learn the Johnson minnow Edit: wait. I forgot a very important one. Swim jig too

Fighting a fish I focus on pressure. As long as I have pressure, all is okay. If I am not already in cover, then I wait until a bass dives for cover before I start pulling hard trying to turn them. If I’m already in thick cover, I kinda just make stuff up as I go, but I always want pressure.

Yup me too. I was up at 2 AM this morning. After doing that Saturday morning as well, I was so tired I fell asleep at 4:30 PM last night. I slept all the way till 2. So I’m super energized now lol

I may not like the heat but right now the fish are telling me that I should go in it. Still really slow fishing though. I got nothing while it was still dark and then got two fish while punching. First one I photo'd went a little over 3lbs, not bad. Second fish I photo'd is a dink but he is still appreciated. Next weekend I will switch it up and change where I launch and then try to commit to punching if the fish are willing to cooperate again. Punching is quite possibly my favorite thing to do out of enjoyment. The fish might just be setting up for me to do it effectively ? That's 65lb braid to a 1.5oz tungsten sinker pegged. Owner jungle flipping hook engulfed by a gambler burner craw in green pumpkin black swirl.

@Bankbeater speaking of thick veggies, that’s where my fish may have gone. A couple fish I got today punching may have clued me in. For the longest time, the fish on Stillhouse have been around hard stuff. Rock and wood and the like. They seem to have switched over to preferring to be deep in the grass. For how long? Remains to be seen. I could be punching and frogging for the whole next month. We’ll see I got only one fish over two trips this weekend while it was still dark.

Rough morning of fishing. One bass @4:07 AM. Think a weather system that came in shut down the bite.

Yeah acclimation helps and can ride you over to a degree. I am not adequately acclimatized to the heat and do not want to willing subject myself to the heat anymore. If I’m outside for work, that’s different

Peak temps are around 4-5PM. Early morning is coolest part of the day. Night fishing is not the safest activity, but neither is driving. Hobie is not a sit in and with PFD and state-required illumination, I feel comfy at night after an hour or so. Shore is not far to either side of the river channel where I plan on fishing. I’ll be alright. I agree with everyone saying that both night fishing and fishing in extreme heat should not be taken lightly. I also agree with those that are saying that big fish can be taken during the day too in heat of summer. I’m simply avoiding the heat

Alright y’all that’s it. I’ve had enough of this heat. I’ve been looking forward to fishing this weekend but I am not looking forward to the hot. I thought I was gonna be fine handling it. I was wrong. The solution I came up with is to focus on the extreme wee hours of the morning. I’ll look to hit the water around 3 AM tomorrow. That way my sleep schedule doesn’t do a complete 180 but I can still get some cool hours of fishing in.

@Dwight Hottle I think I have a dt10 that hunts. I will have to double check, thanks