Fishlegs

Absolutely!

We have the same problem every year near our fireplace. I put a Terro liquid bait trap near where they come in, and they're usually gone in a couple of days. You can get them at Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, etc. My wife thinks it's gross because there are 1000s of dead ants in the traps, but it beats having live ants in the house IMO.

You get to catch it. You get to eat it, but it’s cleaned and cooked by someone else? That’s the life, man. Well done @gim.

Has it always done this, or is this a new problem? I have one of the reels, and I've never had the problem you're having. I use it a lot, and mine opens & closes normally, and has never closed on a cast. I'm not sure what you need to do to fix it, but it definitely sounds like something is wrong with the reel.

Prayers for you, your family, and doctors.

Black bass were tough to come by yesterday, but the fishing was not slow. We caught 6 smallmouth in the 2 lb range, but we caught a total of 45 fish in about 6 hours. My friend caught a 10.5 lb buffalo, and I caught the longest skipjack I've ever seen in person (over 18" & over 2 lbs). Everything else was white bass after white bass. The dogwoods are blooming, and the white bass showed up on cue. We tried several lures, but the only thing that worked was a mid-depth crankbait. Everything I caught was with a green/brown craw pattern with a red belly (pictured), and my friend was using an orange belly craw pattern. The only bad thing was the wind stealing my favorite fishing hat. They were releasing water at 80,000 cfs so we couldn't catch it before the current pulled it under. It's hard to complain about a day where you average catching a fish every 8 minutes, but I'll sure miss that hat. Otherwise, it was a great day.

Congrats, and happy birthday!

That sounds like an "ask me how I know" type of comment @TnRiver46. I bought myself some snips to put in my bag after reading this thread. Yikes!

Abundant, fun to catch, and pretty good eatin’.

I had about 15 minutes to fish before a family dinner, so I took advantage of it. The water was nasty from a recent round of storms so I reached for the brightest lure I had in my box. This little guy really wanted to taste a chartreuse jerkbait. He went for it twice. I was reeling my lure in when I saw something swipe at the lure right beside the dock. He missed, but went after it quite aggressively so I had to try again. I cast out far enough to get it under the water about where the swipe happened, let it sit for a couple of seconds, and...BAM! A feisty largemouth on a jerkbait followed by a nice dinner with another set of largemou...umm, I mean family members. 🤣 It was a very nice evening.

I had about 15 minutes to fish before a family dinner, so I took advantage of it. The water was nasty from a recent round of storms so I reached for the brightest lure I had in my box. This little guy really wanted to taste a chartreuse jerkbait. He went for it twice. I was reeling my lure in when I saw something swipe at the lure right beside the dock. He missed, but went after it quite aggressively so I had to try again. I cast out far enough to get it under the water about where the swipe happened, let it sit for a couple of seconds, and...BAM! A feisty largemouth on a jerkbait followed by a nice dinner with another set of largemou...umm, I mean family members. 🤣 It was a very nice evening. I just realized I posted this is the wrong thread. I meant to put it in the latest catch thread. Oops. I'm going to repost it in the right place. Delete if you need to mods. Sorry about that.

Congrats! Nice fish.

@softwateronly What a fish! Congrats on the new PB! @Swamp Girl I assure you there is nothing but respect for Mr. Bluebasser in my book!

The names don’t get much bigger than @Bluebasser86 to the BR community. Looking forward to the write up.

Go @Bluebasser86!

Nice! @TnRiver46 I stopped at the river after work a couple of days ago and caught 5 in 10 minutes, but they were all little. Those look like big 'uns!

@Pat Brown Brown rhymes with crown. You get one!

If a story starts with "A Florida man" you know it's going to be interesting. 🤣

Those gators look mighty good. If they keep playing like this they have a good shot in the tourney.

Only use one brand of plastics?

I use an old cooler bag that holds three 3600 utility boxes, and one small terminal box. One 3600 box is for hard baits, and the others are for soft plastics, and wire baits. I keep a pair of pliers, a line cutter, a multitool, and an extra spool of line. It's really more stuff than I ever need for a bank trip, and if I try to carry more it gets difficult to fish.

Smaller lures in the 3 inch (7-8 cm) size range are great, but don't ignore larger lures like a 6 inch (15 cm) swimbait, or a 10 inch (25 cm) worm. Sometimes big fish want a big meal in the summertime. I hope you have a great trip. Please post your experience on here when you're finished.

Crappie is preferred, but white bass will be acceptable. 🤣

I don't think you're being unreasonable. It sounds like people are assuming that you're ok with them using your property because they see others use it, or the ones you've given permission to use it are telling others that you're OK with it. Maybe you should make it clear to the ones you've given permission to that they do not have permission to let others use your property. I have permission to fish a few private spots, but I would never tell anyone else that it was OK for them to fish there without talking to the owners.

I'd estimate that 75% of my fishing trips last less than 1.5 hours. They're mostly happen on my lunch break, or just after work. Lunch break trips take 15 minutes to get to the river, and 15 minutes back to work which leaves 30 minutes to fish. I also go after work when I don't have other responsibilities like church, kid's activities, yard work, etc. The length of those trips is determined by how long it is until dark. It's worth it to me though. Any time spent fishing is quite valuable for my mental state.