Got to break in my spinning rod today.

Has the first "founded them" moment of 2019 on a hike after work last week.  The last ice chunks melted away with temps getting into the 60's.  Didn't find any active fish on the steep banks or points where I thought they may be, but as I walked past a small inlet and feeder stream the unmistakable black blob of mature gizard shad was a welcome sight.  Found the bass off them at opening of the inlet. 

 

Couldn't get anything to commit to a jerkbait,  but caught a few on a chatterbait with Jenko tremor shad worked as if I was slow dragging a C-rig.  2 more hit a yoyo'ed lipless. 

 

Below is the best one,  boat comes out of hibernation this weekend!

 

 

Took the yak out today to try my luck again. It was one of those dreaded bluebird days today! The lake was almost dead calm, the heat slowly cranking up, and a very slight breeze. I sizzled out on my yak and caught my 1st case of sunburn for the year!

 

I did manage to put down the lipless and fish a BPS 5.25" speed shad for a while. I've never fished one before and was wondering how it would do. I probably wasn't fishing an ideal color for my lake, but chose to fish a tin foil one so I could actually see what it was doing. It does look like it has some pretty decent action. I was using it on a Storm 360 GT searchbait jig head. I cut off the rounded head part of the speed shad and calculated where the hook would come out, aimed a little low on the shad, and hoped for the best. I actually nailed it as the bait looked perfect and swam straight. I wanted to fish it around 6ft or so, but it likes to rise up in the water column. Maybe not enough weight for the larger size of the speed shad. Didn't get any takers on the speed shad. At least I got to experiment with it and see how it fishes on the jighead, pausing and letting if fall did allow it to go deeper as long as I reeled really slow.

 

I tried out the flatt shad that A-Jay gifted me for a little while. I didn't think it would be effective on a bluebird day with very little surface disturbance so it's workout is on hold for now. Visibility was around 6ft or so in the areas I was fishing. I'll give it a whirl on my next outing if there's some cloud cover or at least some chop on the water.

 

Once again my lucky trap at least attracted some action. The 1st bass that was interested in it was a dink that I watched try and eat it 3-4 times about 12ft from my yak. The little guy tried to inhale it from the side, but was unsuccessful in the end. At least it gave me some hope that I'd have a shot at beating the skunk.

 

Sure enough the trap came thru. It's not a monster at 2.66 lb but at least it wasn't a dink.

 

The trap attracted another bass that was headed in for the kill until it saw my yak, it made a hard left and just missed it.

 

The lake was so calm I actually did a little stand up fishing in my yak. I don't mind sitting and fishing as it's relaxing, but I decided to give it a shot. I caught my 1st bass while standing and fishing. He was one of those slightly bigger dinks in the 1.25 lb or so range. I didn't bother to even photo or weigh him.

 

One of 10 or 11we caught. All brownies with the exception of a small spot. Biggest one was about a pound and a half. Just a good time. Weapon of choice was the bps little wee craw knock off. 

It's been 78 days since I last was able to get the boat out due to our winter weather and heavy rains (but who's counting). Finally made it today though and everything ran fine. Even managed a few bass in 43-44 degree stained water. Felt good to be running the lake again.

 

Fished a little 10-boat 'ice breaker' open tournament this past weekend before my regular season starts and won with a limit weighing 11-15 .  This was the big fish of the day, came on a spinnerbait in/around shallow wood...One of my favorite ways to catch em. 

Well two days into the Toledo Bend trip & I've only caught 3 fish.

 

One was a tagged BassCashBash fish the won me a 2019 Dodge Ram!

 

 

Congrats Catt. Can't go wrong with a new Ram!

Holy Smokes !  

Talk about a score-able bass . . . 

Congrats @Catt

Keep casting . . .

Maybe the next one will cover the tax & tags . . . .

A-Jay

55 minutes ago, Catt said:

Well two days into the Toledo Bend trip & I've only caught 3 fish.

 

One was a tagged BassCashBash fish the won me a 2019 Dodge Ram!

 

 

Congrats!

WOW!

 

12 hours ago, Catt said:

Well two days into the Toledo Bend trip & I've only caught 3 fish.

 

One was a tagged BassCashBash fish the won me a 2019 Dodge Ram!

 

 

Congrats! I bet I would have completely missed that tag and thrown it back without ever knowing. ?

2 hours ago, EGbassing said:

Congrats! I bet I would have completely missed that tag and thrown it back without ever knowing. ?

 

Funny you say that, I almost did!

 

The way I lipped It the tag was facing away from me but my buddy SCREAMED it's tagged!

Thats awesome. Congratulations.

I caught a tagged bass in Iowa 20 years ago. At the time a couple local businesses were giving away prizes for bass that they tagged.

I was all excited.  thought I won something.

I called the number on the tag. It was the Iowa DNR. they were tagging bass to check bass movement in that reservoir. All they wanted was,where I caught it. I didn't even get a hat.

That makes it officially your biggest bass catch ever. Congrats on the new PB. 

Nice going! What do you have to do with the little guy? Pull that tag or do you turn him in?

 

I would have long armed it for the photo also. 

Stopped after work today to take a few casts. Managed to get one on a little jerkbait. Not a monster but the first of the year just felt good.

2 hours ago, kenmitch said:

Nice going! What do you have to do with the little guy? Pull that tag or do you turn him in?

 

I would have long armed it for the photo also. 

 

Rules stated photograph showing tag, cut the tag off, & return to Fin-n-Feather.

23 hours ago, Catt said:

Well two days into the Toledo Bend trip & I've only caught 3 fish.

 

One was a tagged BassCashBash fish the won me a 2019 Dodge Ram!

 

 

Man , what a blessing ! You have some great success on that lake for sure. You could make a new topic " So y'all want to know how to fish toledo bend AND win a new truck " ? ?

Did you get the truck yet ?

1 hour ago, N Florida Mike said:

Man , what a blessing ! You have some great success on that lake for sure. You could make a new topic " So y'all want to know how to fish toledo bend AND win a new truck " ? ?

Did you get the truck yet ?

 

No sir, have to take a polygraph, Fin-n-Feather has to submit my registration, & then I'll be contacted with farther details.

Holy cow, Catt! That's incredible! What a payoff, you lucky dog (er...cat)! Awesome. You're the best, man! (I mean your the best, cat!).   Anyway, congratulations,  et laissez le bon temp rouler avec votre nouveau Ram! 

 

That's crazy! I've caught 2 tagged fish in my life, one was a tagged walleye that was worth $5 (less after I paid to mail in the tag to the state). The other was a freshwater drum? Nobody had any idea why it was tagged even though it was a state tag. 

Sweeeeet

That is just ridiculous.  Never even conceived something like that could occur in a million years, Catt.  

 

Let this be be a lesson to us all, when the wife asks where we’re going the answer henceforth shall be “Headed out to try and win a new truck!” 

On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 9:59 PM, Catt said:

Well two days into the Toledo Bend trip & I've only caught 3 fish.

 

One was a tagged BassCashBash fish the won me a 2019 Dodge Ram!

 

 

Was this caught on St. Patrick's Day?!?!

 

Grats! Fantastic catch and prize!