Carolina Pines

Thanks for the offer! I'm a couple hours from Charlotte, not too far from Jordan lake but I don't have a ton of experience fishing it. If it holds some big fish then I need to make some more trips out there! Right now I've got a few smaller swim baits like 68 Huddleston, 40 size Spro rat, 6" pulse tail trout... and a couple other 6-7" soft baits in the 1-2.5 ounce range. I'll be throwing them on an ALX heavy hammer with a Tranx 200, 17 lb Sunline defier armillo mono. Nothing too big and heavy for now, but if I start catching some hogs on these, the bug is gonna bite me I'm sure. Then, there's a good chance I'll hit you up about a dedicated swimbait rod and reel.

Hey guys this place is awesome! I've lurked here for a while and after my last fishing trip on December 5th I finally decided I needed to join. Both my daughter and I got our PB fish within an hour of each other. More on that trip later! My name is Matt, I was born and raised in central NC, and I've lived here all my life. I've been fishing for as long as I can remember, but I've only been serious about bass fishing since maybe 2010, and I finally feel like I've gotten pretty "good at it" over the past two years. Now, finally, I'm getting to where I can consistently find and catch bass throughout the year even in the winter. I typically fish with my brother in law Tyler, and sometimes my dad. I also enjoy fishing alone. I have a couple of different rigs, an Old Town Appalachian canoe with a motor mount I made myself from ash. My other rig I inherited from my grandfather, it's a 12' Sea King V-hull aluminum boat from the early 1960s. A few years ago I decided to optimize the Sea King. I bought an old 1960s steel boat trailer and restored it, a 1969 Johnson 6hp outboard (completely restored that too), and installed new seat boards, trolling motor mount, and most recently an electric anchor winch. I love that the boat, motor & trailer are all from the 1960s, it's like a time capsule. That little V-hull is awesome for fishing the small local lakes in our area, and I've even used it a couple of times inshore saltwater fishing back in the creeks. I feel like my grandfather is right there with me every time I take it out. My current fishing goal is to get better at targeting trophy size fish. I really want a 10lb+ largemouth in the next year or two, and I have a honey hole that I know holds multiple giant fish. To help me get there, I'm exploring swimbait fishing and I have a few "beginner size" swimbaits under 3 ounces I'm going to be using in the very near future. My daughter is almost 5 years old and she's been wanting to bass fish with me for some time now. She's already done the bobber, worm, bluegill drill and her casting has been improving, so I took her along on our most recent trip. We set out around 10am Saturday, December 5th. Mild day, mid 60s, but it was raining early on, so we waited in the truck and ate lunch until it lightened up. After that, we had a great bite with multiple schools of bass busting shad all over the lake. My daughter used a 3.5" paddle tail on a 1/8 oz jig head and caught her first bass all by herself, 1 pound 2 ounces! Less than an hour later, I'm fishing the edge of a weed line and a huge bass blows up and misses on my topwater walker. No more blow ups on subsequent throws, so I tossed a jerkbait back to the same spot, and got a nice hit on my Pointer 100 after a couple of casts. This time she's on! New PB fish, 7 pounds 7 ounces. My daughter took the picture of me holding it! I'm really looking forward to learning a lot about bass fishing, this place is an incredible resource with some extremely talented anglers. Now for some pictures!