Got on a bunch of quality fish recently including a 3.7lber and a 2.4lber. All fishing out deep with deadsticking finesse jigs and some soft plastics. The smaller fish were all caught on a war eagle double willow spinnerbait in chartreuse. 

Had another really nice trip. Best two were twin 4 pounders. My dad's LM was the biggest one he's caught in at least a couple years and it outweighed my spot by exactly one ounce. 

 

 

 

My buddy got a nice smallie

 

and I got.........

 

A HERRING!!!!

I did not chop down a shrubbery with the herring 

22 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

My buddy got a nice smallie

 

and I got.........

 

A HERRING!!!!

I did not chop down a shrubbery with the herring 

I fart in your general direction

 

Cold weekend mornings both Saturday and Sunday. Temps were in the mid-thirties when I arrived at the water.

 

Saturday I was glad to still be able to catch River Smallmouth on the Whopper Plopper.

 

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Later that day my anniversary present arrived. My wife ordered the Kastking Compass telescopic rod for me. I paired it up with my Lew’s Tournament MB 

 

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With the morning being so brisk I took a hike with the rod collapsed. I tried a popper with no luck so I switched to a Ned rig and caught a bunch of Smallmouth Bass.

 

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Caught a good one this morning on one of my spinnerbaits with copper blades .

How do you like the rod?

19 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

How do you like the rod?

It’s fine as far as telescopic rods go.

 

Things I like: 

 

EVA foam handle

Collapses to less than 17”

Nice blue finish on the rod

Screw off end cap to drain water

 

Things I don’t like:

Only 6 guides (No floating guides)

the Kastking logo, Rod name and rod specs are all stickers on the rod.

Graphite/glass hybrid 

Short split grip 

 

2 Of the Smallies I caught I didn’t even feel so sensitivity is an issue that I expected. When fighting the fish I could see the 6 guides were too few for the job at hand. The short split grip made it feel like a pistol grip rod. Overall I like it and it will serve its purpose as a hiking/travel rod just fine.

 

I have the Kastking Blackhawk II and the BPS Adventur 1 Spinning telescopic rods and they are way better than the Compass. The floating guides and graphite make a big difference.

 

Quick family trip this morning. Agreed to take a pic with whatever each of us caught first, and thank goodness mine wasn't the smallest or I'd never hear the end of it. ?

 

1 minute ago, NorcalBassin said:

Quick family trip this morning. Agreed to take a pic with whatever each of us caught first, and thank goodness mine wasn't the smallest or I'd never hear the end of it. ?

 

Awesome! You were second smallest tho haha

6 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Awesome! You were second smallest tho haha

Lol, that is true!

22 hours ago, NorcalBassin said:

Had another really nice trip. Best two were twin 4 pounders. My dad's LM was the biggest one he's caught in at least a couple years and it outweighed my spot by exactly one ounce. 

 

 

 

Those are some nice ones!! I'm guessing you were throwing jigs? Or what sort of arsenal? Or is that not allowed to be asked on this thread? If not, sorry about that.

37 minutes ago, ryanerb said:

Those are some nice ones!! I'm guessing you were throwing jigs? Or what sort of arsenal? Or is that not allowed to be asked on this thread? If not, sorry about that.

No problem and I'm always happy to share info if it might help someone. I have a bit of a tackle and rod/reel addiction problem, so unless something is red hot I tend to intentionally junk fish each trip in order to use a lot of different things. In this case I anticipated the orange/red jig trailer bite that seems to happen each Sept/Oct to be on, but I didn't even get a hit in the 45 minutes or so I threw it. He picked up his on a baby bass pro senko wacky rigged and mine was on a 3.3 Keitech with a 1/4oz guppy head. 

Nothing but guide trips for me this weekend, but thankfully both days they were alright with me fishing too.

Friday I had Mark on a solo trip and in search of his first ever smallmouth. Took a while but we finally  found it.

 

He also caught his first ever sauger.

 

PB white bass

 

and PB channel cat on a crankbait

 

All told, we had over 50 fish come to the boat, and saw plenty big smallmouth, but they just kept missing our topwaters and never did connect. The only big smallmouth of the day was my 14lb smallmouth buffalo on a spinbait ?

 

Saturday I had Eric and his son Jason who just wanted to catch fish and didn't care how big they were. It's a good thing because the bigger ones didn't cooperate but the little guys were hungry. They were both pretty new to it, had to learn how to use a wacky rig and dropshot but by they end of the day had it down pretty well. Jason actually caught a fish his first 2 cast of the morning with a wacky rig. Once they figured out that they could get a bite off almost ever dock or brush pile I marked on my graph with a dropshot though, they were both fishing that. The fish were really eating a pink or morning dawn colored worm, make wasn't important. The craziest part was Eric got a "bite", and reeled in a freshwater mussel that had clamped down on his dropshot sinker.

 

I spent a lot of time fishing an Antidote glide trying to pull fish out from under docks for them to flip wacky rigs back at but I managed to catch one little guy and a suicidal sunfish on it.

 

Also found one dock loaded with nice black crappie that were catching a Ned rig on the drop. Had to skip way back under it though so I caught a couple and kept moving because that dock was getting beat to death by the baits bouncing off the side of it ?

Forgot my phone at work today so no pics  but, fished the Tittabawassee this morning untill almost 3 .  Bass are still busting Shad every where.  
 

Took a pretty nice 27-28 inch northern 2 bends north from m-46 on a lucky craft 8ft crank.  He was a filled out and looking good. I know since the flood there has been some talk of the pike being down in numbers.  took him on a lucky craft silver 2.5 crank.  I was cranking and actually went to mess with somthing for a couple of second which made me stop reeling.  As soon as I again started he hammered it 

 

 

Caught a keeper smallie on a home made chatter bait.  Right after catching that fish I proceeded to throw chatter bait into a tree.  Luckily I can make a lot more 

Caught a really nice white bass maybe 12-14 inches on a crank,  caught 2 more 12 inch smallies.  
 

Lost a huge fricken smallie on a kvd flat side crank.  He hit so hard I thought I snagged untill he started taking line. In fact  I didnt get a good hook set because, I thought I snagged.  One jump and a head shake he was gone. I was not pleased.
 

 I think this skeet Reese crank rod days are numbered. I’m just not a fan of how slow the action and how whippie  it is.   
 

this is the kvd crank.  Somthing about this color I have has good success with.  First time using this flat side crank but, I’ve caught a lot of fish with the same color in a 300 kvd deep jerk bait 

 

 

Picked off this 5.5 pound bass this afternoon on the finesse outfit. Totally engulfed the worm, but was barely hooked. So glad it didn't jump, otherwise I probably would have lost it. Stayed down and bulldogged the entire time, making me think I might have hooked the rare catfish you sometimes stumble across in these little lakes. Finally backreeled her in like a charm 

 

9 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Picked off this 5.5 pound bass this afternoon on the finesse outfit. Totally engulfed the worm, but was barely hooked. So glad it didn't jump, otherwise I probably would have lost it. Stayed down and bulldogged the entire time, making me think I might have hooked the rare catfish you sometimes stumble across in these little lakes. Finally backreeled her in like a charm 

 

Nice one! Love the back reel. The sound of drag is like fingernails on a chalk board to me 

I took the kayak out on the river for a fishing session on Monday. It was a rare afternoon session for me as I was on the water at 11am and stayed out until 3pm. I had nothing but soft plastics with me. Ned, T-rigged craws and worms. Caught a bunch of Smallmouth and one Largemouth. 
 

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And I almost forgot a huge Redbreast Sunfish

 

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2 nights with temps in the low thirties has made fishing tough the two days after this trip. Got skunked one day and nothing but a dink Largemouth today and some Sunfish.

 I caught my best fish of a shortened COVID-19 2020, a 6.5lber on topwater. The early morning topwater bite was a bit frustrating for me, I was only able to put two non-scorable bass in the boat. The better fish were just swiping at my popper or pulling it down and not getting the hooks. 
 I was starting to think the window for this morning’s topwater bite was about to close as I fired my popper 30 yards out in in front of me and began working the bait back to the boat. I paused the popper to let the rings widen, when a garbage can sized swirl engulfed the popper. My rod loaded for a brief second, then went slack. Another swing and a miss as I then began to cuss at what I knew was a big fish. About the same time I see my popper reappear on the surface. Instead of reeling in the bait and making another cast, I moved the popper about 2 feet and “killed” it with a couple of twitches.
 All of a sudden an even larger boil erupted around my bait as my rod loaded. I thought “He didn’t miss it that time” as the fight was on! What I now realized was a big fish bulldozed into some hydrilla, then out of the grass towards deep water, and back towards the hydrilla mats the whole time pulling drag. My 10lb flourocarbon leader and loop knot were up to the challenge as I brought fish to net a little while later. 
 I did hook a 10-12lb striper on a crankbait and some punch fish during the remainder of the day...

 

Up to Maine for the last time this year.? slow start to the week, lots of swipers but got this 3-0 on a buzzbait

New PB this morning!  Scale said 9 lbs but I'm looking for evidence it was lying light lol.

Uh . . . didn't think these pics were going to end up here. See, I got a PM from Glenn that while he was going through the latest pics thread, he discovered a number of photos were "lost" due to server issues and asked that I replace them. Found the Latest Catch Pics thread from June 6, 2015 but couldn't edit it . . . so those pics from May and early June '15 ended up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, NoShoes said:

New PB this morning!  Scale said 9 lbs but I'm looking for evidence it was lying light lol.

Nice fish!

 

Did you get a length and girth? That's about the only way you could get anything to point you towards your scale being off.

 

I picked the wrong lakes this weekend, both were showing early signs of turnover with cloudy water that had lots of suspended particles blocking visibility in their normally clear waters.

 

Friday I went in search of a big spotted bass, which are very few and far between in Kansas. I did not find many, but I did get one that was about half the state record. They shocked a state record in this lake and the biologist told me there's "several", state records in the lake, so that's what I'm hoping for ever time I go there.

 

Saturday I took the oldest out for a windy morning. Last time I was on this lake I could see 8-10 feet down, but it was cut to maybe 2' despite having very little rain. We caught some dinks, which is mostly what I expect to catch there anyways, and he had a good time, so that's what matters. Lake caught the first fish of the day before we'd hardly left the ramp, and he let me know about it.