First fish of 2019. I've been skunked the last 4 times I've been out, the water is finally hitting 50F+. Had to leave a lake and head over to this pond to get a catch, the other lakes water temps barely hit 50-52F, this ponds north side was 55-57F. Fish were caught up shallow, 2-3ft. Nothing special but I'm happy to finally be on the board for 2019.

 

2lb

 

1.5lb

 

1lb

Had a big floatilla going down river yesterday. Everyone got lots of trout, I got one bass. Only one person dumped a kayak and lost a rod haha. He had Keys/wallet/phone in a pelican case 

This is certainly my most interesting catch lately. He’s not hooked - just hitched a ride on my stick bait. These little guys are all over the lakes and ponds near me. Google tells me they’re probably red spotted newts. 

3 hours ago, JLindsey said:

This is certainly my most interesting catch lately. He’s not hooked - just hitched a ride on my stick bait. These little guys are all over the lakes and ponds near me. Google tells me they’re probably red spotted newts. 

Very similar to what I am seeing in my home lake.  Brownish-red with orange bottom.

4 hours ago, JLindsey said:

This is certainly my most interesting catch lately. He’s not hooked - just hitched a ride on my stick bait. These little guys are all over the lakes and ponds near me. Google tells me they’re probably red spotted newts. 

I see a lot of newts in ponds also. Forget the newt, that is a beautiful plastic worm 

My first time out this year . Great day , high 70's and light wind . Water 1 foot visibility . surface temp 57 in the morning and mid 60's in the afternoon . Caught 58 bass on a spinnerbait . Around a dozen over 15 inches with this five pounder the biggest .

 

 

43 minutes ago, scaleface said:

My first time out this year . Great day , high 70's and light wind . Water 1 foot visibility . surface temp 57 in the morning and mid 60's in the afternoon . Caught 58 bass on a spinnerbait . Around a dozen over 15 inches with this five pounder the biggest .

 

 

Nicely Done ~

50+ spinnerbait bites - that had to be a blast.

Way to start your year off with a BANG !

Congrats

A-Jay

1 minute ago, A-Jay said:

 

50+ spinnerbait bites - that had to be a blast.

 Some days bass are on points like the mouths of coves , the  end of trees ... Today they were in   the coves and coves within coves . Once I figured out the pattern it was easy fishing . 

52 minutes ago, scaleface said:

My first time out this year . Great day , high 70's and light wind . Water 1 foot visibility . surface temp 57 in the morning and mid 60's in the afternoon . Caught 58 bass on a spinnerbait . Around a dozen over 15 inches with this five pounder the biggest .

 

 

That’s worth having to search for big foots (feet(s)?) all winter !!

3 minutes ago, scaleface said:

 Some days bass are on points like the mouths of coves , the  end of trees ... Today they were in   the coves and coves within coves . Once I figured out the pattern it was easy fishing . 

That's my favorite kind.

Here's to a whole season of that.

A-Jay

Aint nuthin' like a self inflicted wound...

I was able to get out Sunday on the jon boat with my brother for a quick one. It was pretty nice out for once. This doesn't matter much at Skunk lake though. It was so windy down there that at some points there were rollers. This time I was smart enough to have a second battery for the trolling motor, but dumb enough to think that we didn't need to be cramped up by carrying the oars. Who needs stinkin' oars with two batteries for a 3 hour session? Well, what seemed like a half a mile of someone's mono wrapping around and behind the prop stopping it dead was the justice dealt out for that error. Did I mention we had no tools? One thing about a windy day and a flat bottomed jon boat is that you'll be blown somewhere fast. We ended up on the shore pretty quickly. I ran through the woods back to the truck and grabbed some tools. Ran back to the shipwreck and made things right, and we were off. I was working the 6th Sense Crush Flat 75 hard along the bottom in six feet of water when this guy bit. It took the sting out the sketchy start to the day!

 

Something about dark skies and light rain ahead of a Florida cold front make bass go crazy for Gambler's 13 inch ribbon tail worms. I caught a nice bunch of 2-3 pounders in the hour before dark tonight and drove home with a smile, amid a lingering scent of Gambler garlic and bass breath.

 

 

 

On 4/6/2019 at 4:53 PM, lo n slo said:

caught 36 spotted bass this morning and zero largemouth. but spots like these put up one heck of a fight!

heck yea! spots are a blast , they never quit. even after in the boat they will get even with a treble hook!

On 4/6/2019 at 12:18 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

This weekend the old power plant lake was her usual temperamental self. I had a guide trip Friday and hadn't been on the lake in about a month so I wanted to poke around Thursday and see what I could find. What I found was discouraging to say the least. The lake had been dropped nearly 2' in less than a week, the wet moss on all the rocks now well on dry ground were an obvious sign of it at the ramp. The plant had just started generating again, so the water was rapidly warming, which triggered a lakewide massive carp and gar spawning party, which the bass do not like at all. I spent 5 hours, fishing a variety of baits from the dam to the far north end, never had anything I'm 100% sure was a bite. I did snag and fight 5 carp to the boat on jerkbaits, cranks, and a trap along with rolling several and having several drag peeling runs from them before they'd pop off. 

 

Badly beaten, I let Gary know of the bad news and gave him the option to go to a different lake but he was paying so it was his choice. He wanted to learn the lake, so we were going back. The lake changes widely from day to day and so does the bite, I told myself on the way to the lake the next morning, not really believing it. The fish gods smiled down on us though. Between the 2 of us about 30 bass, 10 drum, and Gary's first channel cat (he was from the UK and had never caught a drum or catfish). None of the big ones the lake is known for came out to play, but man it feels good to figure them out after getting beat so badly the day before and show someone trying to learn some valuable information. You can kind of tell in the pictures on the rocks in the background how far the water had dropped in about 4 days.

nice bounce back !, pretty awesome to provide a fishing experience for someone like that. got to be a great sense of satisfaction. man it don't get no better when you get yo have fun doing it. 

On 4/8/2019 at 8:50 AM, TnRiver46 said:

Had a big floatilla going down river yesterday. Everyone got lots of trout, I got one bass. Only one person dumped a kayak and lost a rod haha. He had Keys/wallet/phone in a pelican case 

you guys are crazy!if I tried that al you would see is a yack upside down an old man hanging on for dear life, my rods in one hand cell wallet keys gone and white flag waving for surrender. fun to fish with friends .if I were along you wouldn't get any fishing in for laughing.

me and my work partner (John “Mudfoot” ?) finished up a big job yesterday and finally had a good weekday off to fish. we caught over 40 spots with a few doubles mixed in

Fished for a bit from the banks tonight, and caught a good one. Not sure how/ why I only catch decent ones from the shore line here. Of course, now I have to take the kayak out on Saturday, and will catch one dink in five hours (again!).

 

Wasn't having much luck flipping jigs, and it was getting kinda dark. I tried a shallow jerkbait before calling it a day, and stuck this one.

 

Stiff jig rod, light treble hooks, drag backed off, and timber around. Could have lost both the fish and the bait lol.

 

Another PB! Pays to go out in the rain. Bluegill fire swim jig with a magic craw swirl Sweet Beaver rigged sideways. Moving on up! Caught another 2lber a little while later on the same thing. Then a catfish! On a BHite Delight jackhammer. Thought it was going to break my 14lb fluoro. 

On 4/11/2019 at 9:00 PM, deep said:

Fished for a bit from the banks tonight, and caught a good one. Not sure how/ why I only catch decent ones from the shore line here. Of course, now I have to take the kayak out on Saturday, and will catch one dink in five hours (again!).

 

Wasn't having much luck flipping jigs, and it was getting kinda dark. I tried a shallow jerkbait before calling it a day, and stuck this one.

 

Stiff jig rod, light treble hooks, drag backed off, and timber around. Could have lost both the fish and the bait lol.

 

here piggy piggy!!! wow!! good one

Had another guide trip Friday in some nasty, cold front conditions. Highs 25 degrees colder than the day before, lows right at freezing, 20-30 mph winds, bluebird skies, everything you hope won't happen when you're taking someone fishing that is expecting you to put them on fish, especially on a lake that is already notoriously tough. I had a plan to point the nose of the boat into the wind and just fight the wind the best I could while doing a kind of controlled drift backwards down the bank I wanted to concentrate on. Took a bunch of waves over the front of the boat and almost took a swim a couple different times, but we put a hurting on them! No real monsters, but lots of nice fish. Richard was a good stick but old school so it took a minute to get the hang of fishing a Ned like the fish wanted. Once he got it down he was working them over with it. He was really liking the Flash Green Smackdown, made the bites a lot easier for him to see when he couldn't feel them. 

 The real shocker was a smallmouth. There's be stories and they've almost gained a mythical status at this lake. In almost 20 years of fishing it a lot, I've never caught one or seen proof of one until this one came up attached to my jerkbait. I caught it and I still almost don't believe it. 

 

 

My number one bass catching lure from way back when I was just a kid was the Arbogast Hawaiian Wiggler. I've thrown it over the past 2 years with no luck except for one mutant bluegill. Even with the lack of success I've had using it, nostalgia has me chucking it once in a while anyway. The Dark Sleeper got bitten most yesterday, but when spinnerbait conditions arose I tied on the Wiggler in perch pattern. The bassin' gods finally came through for me. That fish hadn't yet swallowed the fish it had when it smashed the Wiggler. 9 in total for me and a bud.  Good times. Here's a few:

 

Beautiful bass @PhishLI

Great catches!

 

A few from a local 5hr kayak tourney today for the best 3. Culled the 16.5 with 11 minutes to left securing 2nd place.

Biggest of the year so far. Swing Impact Fat on a Revenge underspin

 

Hit a mountain lake yesterday. Wacky rigged 4” senko was all I could get them to eat. They were sitting 5-15 feet deep on trees, literally sitting on the tree. Stomachs touching the trunk. 54° Super clear water. Found a school of trout swimming around just below the surface that were all Giants, but none of them had any interest in the lures I had tied on at the time. Caught a few dink bass then the bluebird calm sunny turned to cloudy windy, then a thunderstorm rolled in so I called it and went home. 

 

Kinda rainy cloudy back home, but figured what the heck I’ll go down to the pond for a few hours. Grabbed a rod and a bag of 5” Yum dingers. Bass and bluegill everywhere! Landed 5 and missed several others, but one was a Hawg!

 

5.9lbs, and she just touched 22”! citation baby! 

Went for a few hours this afternoon in the home lake. I though conditions were good with a front coming in and all. Overcast skies , temps in the high 80s.

Tried to start at the north end and it was just too windy. Still got a fish or two on the strike king shimmy stick. Got down to the central part of the lake, and got some sheltered water on the east side of the island, and began pickin em off with the small zoom fluke. Finished the island and decided to fish a deep eel grass line . Something told me to fish the zoom speed worm. First cast , rod loaded up . Big fish.The fish was slightly angling in a way that caused it to get just a little slack and came off. Next cast , a nice fish, 2 1/2 or so . Next cast, a 4.12 ( 2nd fish pictured ).

I fished on around the point going into the s.e part of the lake. Wind 20+ at my back. I proceeded to just wear em out for app. 1 1/2 hours . I had caught high 20s in numbers , most of the fish coming on the windward end of the lake. I caught about half the fish deadsticking, and the other half reeling it on or near the surface, all on the speed worm.Had to anchor at each spot it was so windy , move about a cast away, then re-anchor.

On the way home, I got some more  on the june bug trick worm. Ended up with 30 something total.