On 7/5/2018 at 9:07 AM, Bulletman20XD said:

Here's a Lake Falcon Hawg for you boys!!

WOW!!!great fish what a blast , congrats

Wanted to fish a tournament with daddy so I took him to the $20 entry fee Friday night derby. Ole ned came through for him. Only time the lure touched the bottom all evening I'm pretty sure. Lol 

Had 2 firsts today. 1st first was catching a bass with the 110 Whopper Plopper(also first fish of the day) 2nd first was catching a fish with four different baits/lures. 1lb 4oz on the Whopper Plopper, 1lb 1oz on a weightless Texas rigged bama craw Rage Craw with the pinchers dipped in chartreuse Spike It Dip N Glo, nonscorable bass on a wacky rigged double header red Strike King Ocho and a 2lb 3oz bowfin(not pictured because it took up too much space on here) on a 7/16oz bluegill Storm Wildeye Swim Shad. Not a bad day of bank fishing at Caney Lakes lower lake side. ?

I took two 5" yum dingers and joined them together to make a 10" stickbait and I'll tell ya what, little fish like big worms too! The 2nd fish I caught was even smaller than this one! 

Those little bass do like big worms too. Last summer I caught a major dink on a 12" Mann's Jelly Worm Texas rigged weightless on a 5/O EWG hook. 

4 minutes ago, MichaelCopeland said:

Those little bass do like big worms too. Last summer I caught a major dink on a 12" Mann's Jelly Worm Texas rigged weightless on a 5/O EWG hook. 

It's amazing what they'll try to eat!

1 hour ago, Bassin' Brad said:

It's amazing what they'll try to eat!

Yep and sometimes they even put up more of a fight than the bigger bass do.

 

Ned rig gets big numbers in a pond full of dinks ?. This one was the second biggest at a pound and a half but I got one that went 2.6 later in the evening on a 3’ wacky senko but didn’t get pics ?

Well, today was a good day. Went fishing at Burr Oak for a little bit and caught my new Personal Best Bass. Granted, those of you that have seen my previous bass, you'll realize it doesn't take much to break it. lol

 

Drug a whopper plopper 90 in Pac-Man along the right side of some lily pads and on the 5th retrieve or so this guy came storming out from under and smoked it.

 

 

It may not be much for some of you but it is a PB for me in my short fishing career so far. Caught on a swing football head with a Rage Tail menace grub. 

6 minutes ago, Somd Fx4 said:

It may not be much for some of you but it is a PB for me in my short fishing career so far. Caught on a swing football head with a Rage Tail menace grub. 

Nice Bass ~

We all start somewhere

Congrats on the new PB 

A-Jay

Life in the shallow subdivision ponds around here can be a pretty tough living due to a variety of factors. Kind of rare to find one with a real good size structure of bass in it. As such, we get a lot of smaller fish that top out around 3-4 pounds before dying off. Managed one this weekend that was probably around as big as they get in this particular pond...at least it's up there with the biggest I've ever caught there.

 

@Team9nine Very nice!!

7 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Life in the shallow subdivision ponds around here can be a pretty tough living due to a variety of factors. Kind of rare to find one with a real good size structure of bass in it. As such, we get a lot of smaller fish that top out around 3-4 pounds before dying off. Managed one this weekend that was probably around as big as they get in this particular pond...at least it's up there with the biggest I've ever caught there.

 

 

This seems to mirror what I experience. Loads of 2-3 lbrs. and the occasional 4-5. Would really like to hear your insights on this.  

this greedy 4.6 lbs bass couldnt even wait to completely swallow this poor frog before chomping at my jig.

She decided that there was just enough room to fit a 2.75" trd in that belly.

That is a nice fatty bass. she can be double digit in no time. I don't think I ever caught bass that fat.

Smallies liked the ned yesterday morning. I caught 11 in 30 minutes. The ned is a skunk buster.

Well 6poundbass and I headed out yesterday morning so he could break in his new Mike Iaconelli spinning combo he got for his birthday last week. @OCdockskipper would be proud knowing my son specifically asked for the Ike combo. LOL

He ended up catching 7 in just over three hours.  Most went around 1-8.He was pretty geeked. No more spincast for him. 

 

 

4 hours ago, WVU-SCPA said:

She decided that there was just enough room to fit a 2.75" trd in that belly.

Dude that bass is just ridiculous. That thing has been eating like me at Thanksgiving. 

Spent the day on the James river yesterday and caught a handful of largemouth and a couple smallmouth. The smallmouth were on wacky rig stick baits. Largies I caught on jigs and one on a Keitech, all way up in cover. Fishing wasn't easy, but we had one of our better days on this stretch of river. Saw a couple 3-4lb smallies cruising around and had one follow a lure but couldn't catch any of the big girls. Also trolled right up to a 40"+ Muskie sitting up on the edge of a rock pile, and saw maybe 2 dozen short nose and long nose gar cruising around chomping on all the fry that were literally everywhere. 

 

Almost caught my first Muskie on a jerkbait! Felt a couple taps on the bait when it was 8-10 feet from the boat and kept just barely twitching it. Finally got it close enough to see and there was a teeny tiny Muskie! Couldn't have been more than 6" long and was very interested in that 5" rapala jerkbait!  It hung around for about ten seconds then swam back down into the rocks. Just missed getting a pic of it. 

 

The smallie in the pic thought it had wings! I hooked it and it ran a few feet then jumped straight up about 5 feet out of the water! Couldn't shake that VMC hook though! 

13 hours ago, The Bassman said:

 

This seems to mirror what I experience. Loads of 2-3 lbrs. and the occasional 4-5. Would really like to hear your insights on this.  

@Paul Roberts and I have had some pretty in-depth discussions on this very subject over the years, and it largely boils down to adequate food supply and longevity. These ponds have to produce enough food of various size classes, and it has to be available to the bass at the right time/age Plus, the fish have to live long enough in them to be able to grow big. However, such conditions don’t exist very often in these man-made systems as there is little ecological stability. Many are borderline insufficient depth for survival or protection during severe winters or summer die-offs. They are rarely stocked intelligently/intentionally, and then managed afterward. They frequently receive excess nutrients from adjacent farm fields or home owners yards, then get treated by HOAs for excess weeds/algae, etc. due to this over-fertilization. Plus they tend to get a lot of foot traffic from anglers which likely crop off many of the few big ones that do make it against the odds. It seems like 3 pounds (give or take) seems to be the natural limit before fish start getting skinny and succumb to either insufficient forage (of appropriate size), harsh environmental conditions, old age or fishing pressure. Anything above that size is kind of a special fish in these little waters. Those waters that regularly produce a lot of bigger than normal bass, or have really good overall bass size structure, can probably attribute it to one of the above factors (or more likely several of them) falling into the basses favor (against the odds).

What he said ^^^

 

Little to add. Except maybe that length -frame length to hang that weight on- is important. In my small waters, instability simply doesn't allow it. Hot summers, cold winters, and variable vegetation growth take their toll.

14 hours ago, WVU-SCPA said:

She decided that there was just enough room to fit a 2.75" trd in that belly.

Good gracious what a bass. Most folks would say that one was full of eggs! I think sometimes they just eat a lot, even during spring 

6 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Good gracious what a bass. Most folks would say that one was full of eggs! I think sometimes they just eat a lot, even during spring 

We were prefishing for a tournament this weekend so after a quick photo she was quickly released to the depths.  The next few hours I kept wondering what was all in there....could she really have eggs in July? Did she swallow a plastic and have blockage?  If she spent the next few hours in the boat would we be cleaning 8 oz of shad out of the livewell?  Hopefully she keeps here eating habits through Saturday.