Gotta admire there heart and determination 

Nice fish, great pic!

 

Went out for a few Friday afternoon. Really liking the owner 3/16oz jig rig with small swimbaits. Merry Easter!

 

She’s no giant, but still my biggest of the year so far. 3lbs 3oz

 

Happy Easter! 

Went down to visit my cousin yesterday and spent the whole day on the water. 3 different lakes over the course of 11 hours. Caught this one 2 hours in and another smaller one a few hours later. My cousin caught 4, but this was the catch of the day! 5.73lbs. Booyah Glow Blade spinnerbait, white with white willow blades. Over my right shoulder are 4 old dock posts, I cast right between front 2 and landed just to the left of the back left post. Slow rolled it out, just as it passed between the 2 front posts it got slammed! Heart was racing! Felt big but I was pulling it through the pads so wasn't sure. My cousin netted it and we both just looked at each other, holy crap! A full 2 pounds bigger than my previous biggest! Such a great day on the water! Made dealing with 12-17mph winds on his little bass raider well worth it. 

 

 

Congrats on the new PB. Don't forget to change your profile pb to 5-6. 

Still no fish. Bootleg dark sleeper got its guts ripped out after getting hung up a few times. This did not happen to the authentic one that I got snagged with more times than I could count.

 

Switched to a black/blue BooYa Jig with orange grub tail on it to get some chatter going, managed to see a few dink’s hit the grub tail very close in, but they were barely 3x bigger than the 3/8’s jig.

 

Nowhere near as durable as the real thing

 

 

 

Finally got out to do my first actual fishing of the year....

 

The water of choice was a little natural lake, under 100 acres, visibility to about 10 feet. Water temp was 52 a couple feet down.

 

First two bass of 2019 were these little guys, 12" and 13" on a Ghost Sunfish Slender Pointer:

 

And then....nothing for the next hour and a half. Tried some different things at various spots and various depths: a ned rig, a jig 'n craw, a shiny new Jackhammer I've been waiting to break in...nothing.

 

Until i got up near a guy fishing on the bank, and saw him pull in a bluegill. Immediately, I had another jerkbait dink on. We congratulated each other, and he said he had been around most of the lake on foot over the last few hours, and the spot he was on was the only place to produce any 'gills. I made a mental note ("Now, if I were a bass....").

 

5 minutes later he left, so I moved in....and 2 casts to the deeper side of his bluegill spot, this 20-incher hit, just shy of 4lbs (3.96):

 

And then one more "non-scorable" bass to finish the excursion.

 

So first trip out for the year, 3 hours, 5 fish, one good one, all on the slender pointer -- feels good; I'll take it. 

First large mouth of the year from Murphy lake michigan on Easter Sunday.  Makes it even sweeter that I caught it on a chatter bait I poured ( do-it mold), painted, cured, and assembled. Jig is silver, skirt silver and black, with a 2.5 inch twister tail for a trailer.  I lost another about the same size.  Made it all worth while is both nailed the lure as 2 separate group of guys came motoring up to ask how I was doing 

Heres a close up of the chatter bait 

.  Now I just need a differnt mold to enminate the split ring 

Nice bass. Looks like that bait works pretty well with the split ring 

[April 22, 2019]

 

It's been a long winter... working on fishing tackle projects, waiting for the snow to melt, and the ice on the lake to thaw. My buddy and I headed out for our first fishing trip of 2019 back on April 15th, 2019, but we both zeroed. Water was cold & dirty (~45 degrees, <1ft clarity), and there had been two tournaments the past two weekends. Not making excuses, just the conditions were tough. We fished area's we had history with in the past and tried to hit high percentage areas that we know hold fish... but it didn't work. So a week passes, we get a few more days of warm weather, and come up with the idea to fish a completely new location and area of the lake that neither of us have ever fished before. No history or memories to worry about, we will have only our instincts and what we have learned to guide us through our fishing day...

 

When we got to the ramp we could see the water clarity was around 3-4ft, water temp was around 46-50 degrees, and the forecast showed today to be sunny through the morning, then become overcast with falling pressure and wind in the early to late afternoon. We both knew bass are currently in the pre-spawn phase, so it's a matter of finding where they are staging and what they will react to. The new area we fished was amazing, literally everything looked good from rocky points, to boulders, to deep water breaklines, to docks & laydowns, you name it. We fished so much amazing looking stuff for hours and hours without a bite constantly covering water, throwing lipless crankbaits, spinnerbaits, deep diving crankbaits, jerkbaits, softbaits, bladed jigs, jigs, over and over and over until my arm was sore. "Keep Grinding" I told myself as I had in my mind today's success could come from a specific location or time of day or even a combination of both. Well the night before our trip I did a little research on Google Earth and Navionics, and found three key locations that looked good. Well the day was now about over, and we were on the last one. It was the last major secondary point before you get to the back of the cove where the spawning area would be. It had an area off the point with ~10-15ft before it breaks off into 30+. By this time in the day the clouds had rolled in along with the wind and it was becoming harder to control the boat. Not only could I now see the ramp we launched from this morning, I could also make out the truck and trailer - we were that close to the end of our day. It only took a couple of casts (par usual when fishing around fish) and I felt the rod load up...

 

1st Bass of 2019 - 18 & 1/4'', 2lb 13oz / 2.88lb

 

 

6th Sense Curve 55 (Crackle Craw)

 

WolfyBrandon

 

First decent smallie of the year!  Couldn’t find the fish all day, this was the only fish landed.  At least it was a good one!

Got out from 8:30 til.2 today. Got 10 -1 on a chatterbait and 9 on a jig with the best two weighing 3-2 And this one at 4-13

Post-frontal fishing from the riverbank today.

 

Was hoping for a bigger smallie to show off, but it was not to be.  So here is a little one instead. Also, a somewhat foamy largemouth:

 

First New York Largemouth of 2019 for me! The pond Bass have finally come out of hibernation.

 

I was out for Trout with a size 100 reel, 4# mono and a light action pole. Had a worm threaded on a size 6 Aberdeen hook. Saw this girl hanging by some cover with my polarized glasses. Tossed it about a foot and a half away and she shot out and slammed the worm. A nice little fight on the Trout and panfish gear for sure.

 

A little slow lately, a lot of dinks, so I was happy to get something decent. Also, my first fish on a soft plastic (senko). I usually only fish hard baits, and frogs.

 

 

Next cast caught this guy on the senko, near the same laydown.

 

And a PB Crappie for me lol, on a jerkbait

Broke in my new Jackhammer chatterbait on a new lake today...in 3 hours I caught 16, all about the same size -- around a pound or two, like this one:

 

 

Spinnerbait chunk this afternoon, best of 9 (didn't get a weight; likely 3-something):

The shoreline areas had some weeds, and some wood; the key was finding where there were both.

 

It was a beautiful day to be on the water: sunny and just the right amount of wind. However, as much as this fisherman liked the conditions, the smallies didn't. I went to a presentation that's worked in the past, a simple, 1/8 oz. bucktail jig fished slowly and deep off a rock pile. This 4.37 lb. smallmouth made the mistake of taking it for lunch!

No weight, just caught, pictured, released. Modified devils horse. Bank fishing around a dock! 

57 minutes ago, NittyGrittyBoy said:

No weight, just caught, pictured, released. Modified devils horse. Bank fishing around a dock! 

That thing looks huge

This pic is for better size reference. Maybe I tiny bit long armed.?

9 minutes ago, NittyGrittyBoy said:

This pic is for better size reference. Maybe I tiny bit long armed.?

 

Long arm or not, that's clearly still a monster!  Congrats!

9 hours ago, NittyGrittyBoy said:

This pic is for better size reference. Maybe I tiny bit long armed.?

Yeah, long arm or not that’s a big one. I could tell by the mouth and gill plate compared to your hand. There’s no chance of mistaking that one.  

I post this just because this bull bluegill was so danged pretty. I have caught them much longer than this one on Lake Athens here in east Texas; but, this guy was really, really thick. My flip phone photo doesn't do him justice.

 

Oh, yes! After I put away my ultralight tackle, I got into a mess of LMBs, too! Late afternoon fishing yesterday! Nothing very large, 6 or 7 as I recall, all in the 2 to 2.5 lbs. range.

 

Brad