Blue Raider Bob

Those Hogs came out of that little 'o bitty creek behind you? That is incredible. Those are some beasts!

What was the limit? its 15 here.

I can scurry past her no problem, but she just stands there watching me while I am on the dock instead of sitting back down on her eggs. This brings on a guilt trip that ruins my Bluegill time, so I just scurry past her again and observe some other areas. She's lived here four years now. You'd think she would be more tolerant of me using her pond by now! Past history shows that once the eggs hatch and she leads them to water, she doesn't return to the nest site and I can go back to my evening routine.

It's getting close. Sometime this weekend Gigi should hatch her young'ins and give me back my dock. She is pretty touchy nowadays and her guy (Ralph), is getting kind of bold as well. Living on a farm, I've dealt with coons, possums, skunks, bobcats, snakes, you name it. Even had a neighbors bull in the yard one day tearing up the shrubbery, but something about this dang goose that makes me hesitate. Maybe I just respect her grit when it comes to her family. I know everyone on this site feels the same way about theirs. Hopefully I'll have some news Monday! Happy Hooking until then!

The Zman TicklerZ in Smelt is my go to this time or most any other times of year. Caught gobs of little ones on it Sunday. Don't catch a lot of big ones but it always produces.

This is interesting in many ways. I have a pond that I spend lots of time observing. When I approach a Leopard Frog, the first thing it does after leaping into the water is make an immediate turn and head back towards the bank and burrow into vegetation. I have never observed a Leopard Frog swimming in open water. With that said, I have also observed a LMB burrow into the weeds to extract a frog. The frog was too big for the LMB and got away to the bank. The 180 turn the frogs make are done even in smaller ponds that do not have fish. It is just another mysterious instinct.

I fish big rivers and prefer rising waters. Falling waters tend to scatter fish. I work a wider range of depth regardless until I figure out where the fish are. Of course sometimes I never find them and sometimes I can't hide from them.

A 19" River Smallie is an absolute PIG! Using Katie's scale for measuring fish would add 5 lbs just for being a river fish!

4-9-23 Postfrontal Conditions Sunny Skies High of 70 deg. Water Temps 56 deg. Caught a spot on my second cast with a jerkbait, then went fishless until I went with the Ol' Faithfull TicklerZ. Bite increased throughout the day until by 3:00 PM the little ones were eating like sharks!. Couldn't find any big one but found lots of littl' O' bitty ones. Final score....64 fish. One Big Drum One Cat Five Skipjack Five White Bass including a 2lb 1 oz that was 15" Long Fifty Two Spots and Smallies ranging from Just born to 15" Yes they were all small but still bent the rod and had a blast!

Looks like a Rock Bass to me.

Well Alex, he couldn't go on driving a taxi forever could he? Let's see.....Humh......New York traffic or Lake Lanier PB's? Alex, I think Alex made the right move!

I put this question to the test yesterday because your question really got me thinking, (also my other choice was farm work). I went to a local farm pond I fish often but the water is only two feet deep at its deepest. It is used to water cattle with no thoughts of fishing use. The wind was gusting but I used top water anyway (Thanks Alex). I had a couple of blowups and one small bass. Left there and tried my pond with the blue dye. Had about twenty strikes on a small Whopper Plopper in an hour. The bass had no trouble at all finding my offerings. My hook up rate was abysmal ( 1 in 10), but that a whole new topic.

If I may answer this one as well? I have to use a colorant dye in my pond due to algae growth. My pond gets gin clear in the winter, and before the water warms enough to produce an algae bloom, the filamentous, and Chara, totally dominate. The combination of algaecide (which is toxic to zooplankton and invertebrates), and pond dye do a decent job of algae control, but is not the silver bullet pond management companies would lead you to believe. Algae survives, but is further restrained by the spring plankton blooms. The pond is treated in sections so there will be invertebrate and zooplankton survival. As far as fishing conditions, after treatment I have not noticed any reluctance on the part of the pond fish to behave any different than before treatment. I will say that after treatment, it is much harder to view the fish, which If my sight penetration is diminished, then the fish must experience a similar effect.

They didn't put much effort into spreading the dye. It may take a few days for coverage. I have to do mine about twice a year to inhibit the algae.

That is one BAD little dude! When he grows up, I'd stay away from that lake! Wouldn't let my dogs swim in it either!

Yeah, Katie, he's outfishing my old ahhh (Butt), something terrible! I better get back on the water. I caught a 2.5 Sunday was proud of it......until I opened this thread!

Love that speed craw! Actually, it's not juvenile. Guys think that way until we croak!

I feel bad for you Alex! I totally understand the anticipation to get on the water and then Murphy happens! Sounds like it is going to hurt for a while but you will forget all about it when you set that first hook. Good luck friend!

4-2-23 Water Temps 58deg. Post frontal after the tragic storms that passed through the mid-south that caused so much death and destruction. Bluebird skies with nary a cloud to be seen. After all the high water since the first of the year, I was shocked at the low water situation that greeted me on the river. The river is at late summer levels with very little current. This tends to scatter the bass and leaves the bank vacant of good fish. After a few dinks, I came to this realization and went for the railroad bridge pilings in Bridgeport Alabama. Managed to catch a couple nice ones with big fish being a 16-3/4 inch 2.5 lb spot. Caught on shakey head jig with 6" Big Bites worm. Otherwise it was a really slow day on the big T. Saw lots of schooling white bass on sonar so spent lots of time playing with them with my ultralight and Mepps Aglia. There's nothing like a big white Bass slamming a Mepps and heading down river! Final score...... 2-Spots over 15" 27 munchkins with a few nice white bass sprinkled in.

It is amazing the variety of lures being used. The conclusion I have chosen is you can catch bass on any lure in your tacklebox if you have the confidence and persistence to try it. I think it comes down to what type of fishing you really enjoy. Some of us like power fishing, some light finesse, and some just some of both.

Katie while coopertreuse certainly has worked for me, my favorite is Smelt. It looks like a stupid little minnow that is begging to be crushed. Like I stated in a earlier post, this is what works best for me. Clear and good visibility, Smelt and the Deal. Slight stain or just a little muddy with some visibility, Laguna Shrimp. Although I have caught them with the Coppertreues in both water conditions. On thing about the Zman is the baits do not wear out. Your thumb skin will wear out before a TicklerZ. I like them better than the TRD because they are a little longer, and they have little squid tails. I do use a larger TRD sometimes and Bass crash them as well. However, if I had one to choose from and ONLY one...it would be the TicklerZ in Smelt.

Coppertreuse works for me too! The only way I switch colors usually is to hang up and break off, which is frequent in the currents of the big rivers. Otherwise I would use the same TicklerZ all year. They are indestructible. They way outlast the point of the jig.

What color TicklerZ? That is my go-to! I use The Deal or Smelt most of the time but the Laguna Shrimp works as well, especially in stained water.

The goose has an interesting story (at least for me). We have always had geese come and go but several years ago, after the flock left, there was one goose that remained. I could tell something was wrong because her right wing hung down. As the days and weeks passed she remained on the pond with her limp wing and became somewhat of a family member. We would take her out bowls of grain, (my daughter has goats and horses), and she would gladly wait by her bowl for feeding time. I assumed she had hit our power line upon landing so I named her Crash! Well, the little woman thought that was the low-bred, red-necked kind of thing I would say so she re-named her Gigi. She would occasionally stretch and flap her wings but her bad wing kind of flopped. I assumed it was dislocated at the shoulder and not broken. By this time she had attracted a friend (Ralph), who stayed with her for months. Evidently in her daily flapping, her wing popped back in her socket because her wing never hung low again. They started flying back and forth from our place to a local farm pond that I fish, but always came home at night. One day after a months long absence we were shocked that there was Gigi with a brand new gosling. She must have nested in the woods without our knowledge. They raised the gosling and the three of them left in the late fall for good after many trips back and forth to the farm pond. Fast forward to this late winter and Gigi and Ralph show back up with Gigi walking up to the house for breakfast. Things were back to normal until Gigi started her nest. All of a sudden Gigi no longer viewed us as family, but as egg poachers! She has gotten the primeval attitude of her ancestors and doesn't like me to get to close. She should start hatching mid April so my banishment from my dock should end in a couple of weeks. So much for kindness! Mark Twain once remarked, "You can take a starving dog and befriend him and he will never betray you. That is the principal difference between dog and man." May I also include Geese!

Katy, I just try to remember the lures, colors, and situations in the hope that it might benefit my fellow anglers, not because I have a great memory. Also I find it interesting how sometimes a change in color produces. It must be related to the water clarity/light penetration at different times of day. I have success with natural colors in clear water, and louder colors when there is a little stain. I didn't mention that a one point I used a larger TRD in green pumpkin and lost two nice ones in 3 minutes. I think the bass have an easier time inhaling the smaller lures but they'll durn sure try to eat the bigger ones. The problem is getting a good hook set with the bigger lures because most of the fish I'm enticing are the smaller bank hugging variety. Sorry about the ice. I feel for you guys. My pond surface temps hit 70 deg. yesterday afternoon and the bass have other things on their minds, although I had to run the gauntlet past the goose to get to my dock thermometer! That is getting tricky!