thediscochef

From what I've heard locally it's been fishing better this year. I've never fished that lake but experience elsewhere in DFW tells me that you should look shallow that time of year. Hubbard also has a lot of docks and such so flipping a craw jig or a small swimbait around those should produce something.

If I had replied to this thread originally I would have said 1/2oz red eye shad or a c rig lizard. I would have been right about the 1/2oz red eye for smallmouth. 4lb 1oz. 3/4oz red eye shad did the work for the biggest LM. 7lb 5oz of pure summer fun.

Watched the bass boat across the creek channel boat two really nice ones in deeper water, always hurts but I've worn that shoe on the other foot before and I will again sometime probably soon. Again nothing to write home about today but I'm gaining some confidence with the crawler. Two on that today including one I had to do a little work for. There's a bass up in that milfoil. Fishing has improved but that water is still pretty warm. Need more rain and cool weather.

discovering the afterpay feature is dangerous with my new-found love of the winged crawler

I didn't notice that much of a change, then again I don't spend much time on TW unless i'm looking for something the locals don't have. I could still find what I needed. search bar functions are underrated. I wish the local academy would restock the stx38 size two. I've been using the bkk ewg treble and I do like them a lot, but I would like ol'reliable back. TW sells them for like $2 more than what I'm used to paying plus shipping

I didn't quite have the lizard success I was after this year but I did catch fish on them. I continued gaining confidence with baits, mostly the t rig and topwater lures, but also some tiny non-bass tackle and nighttime a-frames. Had my first successful spawn fishing season, the first time I've ever really been able to nail down patterns and the changes of lake seasons. My goal was to catch more and bigger bass and maybe a DD. I don't know that I caught more bass, but I definitely caught bigger bass. No DDs but those take years for some of us. I had a lot of lost fish heartache this year, more than last year, but that was going to happen sometime. Overall I feel good about the year I've had, but there are many moons left before I'm done. There may yet be a new PB left for me in 2023. All my PBs came in December each of the last two years so fingers crossed

I have a busy day today so I only threw topwater from about 7-8am. Had a few nice hits on a walking bait and then my first ever crawler fishes on back to back casts. Neat

Nothing big today but I got on some bass with a walking bait. Always a good time. Probably had five or six fish miss the bait but had just as many get it. This was as big as they got though. It was 46 degrees when I got to the lake. I'm not as bundled up as it looks lol

I've said before that this forum has some of the nicest and most helpful people in bass fishing. I am not wrong honestly I do my best work with walkers when it's flat calm and I'm throwing them into places that give me the sweats. Also, they are much more forgiving to walk with an eagle claw size 1 duo lock snap - I prefer that to a split ring because of the sharper edges on the split ring. Plus, the size 1 snap can replace the snap on a chatterbait minimax as needed

You came at me with "interesting take", which isn't universal for agreement, I don't think I'm the one with reading comprehension skill issues here.

yeah. and i haven't ever advocated against PFDs. put the straw man down. Two men died. What I was trying to say with less words is that people are way too casual on the water - boats have safety features, sure, but there's a point at which those features only do so much if anything goes wrong enough. boaters shouldn't be lured into a false sense of safety just because they're wearing PFDs.

Right! also makes me want to explore some water I haven't fished

I'm having a similar experience...I'm doing terrible at roberts this week but my buddy at Lewisville downstream is crushing it. He's been kicking my butt since August really but it's been numbers this week

OK I'm gonna stop you right there if you think I don't think PFDs are important. But if you hit a stump rooster tailing across the lake and that lower unit winds up in the seats, a PFD isn't gonna solve that. ?‍♂️ a fighting chance is better than drowning you dingus

I learn this lesson every six months or so, it's getting old. I usually keep it backed off but I just respooled that reel a few days ago and I forgot to re-check it. I know what I'm doing I just get regular painful reminders and I don't like it.

I lost the only decent bite I had this morning because my drag was cranked a bit too far. Horsed the fish around and one of two barbs came loose about half way through the fight. Didn't snap off, but didn't allow me any forgiveness at the bank. My hand was maybe 18" from lipping that bass before it jumped and threw the last hook. Looked like a solid 3.5-4.5# fish. I landed one other dink but I got gilled so no pics. It takes so long to get a bite right now, it's a bad time for painful reminders. Stupid morning. One of these days I'll actually post a catch pic again but those have been in short order this week. Confidence is way low

It's not so much the bite offs for me but the bites if you out your hand in the wrong place ? my digits get cut up enough as it is LOL

Absolutely terrible. PFDs don't solve everything but you might at least get a fighting chance. RIP

I'm really glad that I don't have to deal with the pike family and walleye on top of the gar family. One type of toothy is enough for me.

The only three species ever stocked on Lake Ray Roberts were LGM, coppernose, and threadfin. Yet, we have smallmouth, wipers, crappies, carps, gizzard shad. The list of non-stocked non-natives is long and mostly introduced from overflow/drainage into the lake. It's only so controllable and we only have so much influence

I know this thread has moved on but i cant pass up a jeff goldblum gif opportunity. Life, uh, finds a way

This and king fishers post that followed it are the correct takes in my opinion. I didn't realize there were pike in the Susitna when I was there like 15 years ago. Makes the dismal king fishing in the streams make a lot more sense...and all this time I thought we had fished a bad spot... The hard part about it is that without man-made lakes stocked with introduced species, I would probably not have much water to fish at all. There are native black bass in my area, mostly spotted bass and some northern strain LM. Those native spotted bass have no size limits at most of the lakes I fish. I love catching big Florida bass, but it is an unnatural existence here. I also have A/C, and watch videos on what basically amounts to controlled lightning. Very little of modern existence is in congruence with the earth around us, we are in many ways monuments to our own arrogance and pride

There are companies that make practice weights, but these days I either use a clapped out lipless with the hooks removed or a water gremlin dipsey swivel that's been heatshrunk to cover the brass bits. I have enough cracked up red eye shads to last a lifetime of practice at this point lol One of the points I read above described a centrifugal braking system as being more capable of handling force? I completely disagree. My lews tournament pro snapped off a brake shoe on a hard cast. It was a bad cast but not one that should have broken the reel. That would never happen the same way with mag brakes. That said, the mag brakes aren't as responsive as the centrifugal brakes and I backlash more with the mag brakes. But I'm also mostly bomb casting; as good as I am at long distance my short game is honestly laughable

can i pay you $1000 to take me out to O.H. Ivie

The reasons for it are complicated - most of the bones, the main arteries of the state were constructed at a time where ranches and such dominated the landscape/development and were the primary vehicle owners in the state - most in the cities didn't need the car until development started spreading outward instead of upward. Now we have a huge influx of population and by the numbers, there could simply never be enough maintainable road to keep the congestion here managed - unless it could be possible for easier walking to be an option for those who could choose to do so