Got out with a friend for a few hours on saturday. Bluebird skies, and started out windy. The only thing the fish seemed to want were yum dingers. 18 of the 20 fish were caught on them. i tried bigger fish baits off and on with no success at all, neither one of us caught anything over a pound and a half.

We really enjoyed being out there though. Beautiful day to be on the water!  

The wacky rig strikes again

Looks like a decent bass, hokie! 

Couple more on Chatterbaits and jigs. I think I landed 7 on a Chatterbait. They were really hitting them in the steadily windy conditions. For about 10 minutes, the wind stopped and my jig was getting hit every cast as soon as it hit the water. Mostly small, but lost a real nice fish right at the bank.

Threw a spinnerbait in a dock yesterday and thought I'd caught the lake record, not.  4.20 lb.

Made my first after work trip to one of the local lakes this morning, can't wait for my son to be out of school so I can go straight after work instead of waiting to take him first ?

Had a few swimbaits that I really wanted to try and get bit on, so I threw those a lot. I hadn't caught one yet on a swimbait from my kayak, but I had a skinny 17 incher fix that for me.

I had one more pop the Monster Jack without getting the hooks, and I stuck one for just a second on the Bull Shad glide that pulled off, but that was it other than a bunch of follows. It rained a lot for it not suppose to rain any too. I stayed way longer than I should have, picked a spot I wanted to fish to and quit. I was just about to it, fishing one of my homemade bladed jigs, when this fish ate it off my rod tip.

5.30lbs, probably would have eaten either of the swimbaits I had been throwing, but I'm glad she at least ate something I had tied on. 

The "Year of the 2-pounder" continues. A representative pair out of six this afternoon:

 

 

The only thing I could get bit on was a weightless Zoom Super fluke up shallow.  They wanted nothing that moved too much or fell too fast, and nothing on the bottom. 

 

Visibility in this lake goes to about about 12-15 feet, and I could see some massive roamers --likely females waiting to move up to spawn-- suspending at around 6-7 along the slope of a steep drop from 4 ft to 20.  I got one to follow a KVD jerkbait momentarily, but couldn't get it to commit, and otherwise nothing got their attention. 

 

On 5/8/2021 at 9:27 PM, PhishLI said:

Please share a link to the the air pump you use to inflate those smallies. TIA!

 

I believe this is the air pump:

https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=713

3 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

 

I believe this is the air pump:

https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=713

Haha! Yep. When I was in northern Michigan the first thing I did was wade out into the water. Those little things were all around my toes everywhere I went, pretty wild 

First Largemouth Bass of 2021 for me. Can’t remember a year it took this long to get one. I was having too much fun Trout fishing I guess.

 

The Carolina rigged worm, dragged on the bottom was what they wanted. Got two today and a Pickerel 

 

I had a really fun morning throwing a chatter- er a vibrating jig. The fish would knock a foot or two of slack in the line on the initial strike as opposed to stopping it in its tracks. I was able to put a 4.7lb, 3.9lb and a 3.7lber in the boat for some photos. And to think my first fish of the day was easily an inch shorter than the spook he decided to pick on....

1st bass/LMB of 2021 last Saturday! I caught it on a 6th Sense Provoke 106X in Smallmouth Rose @ Lake St. Clair. It was 1 lb 11 oz. I'm going again tomorrow morning and hope to add to this!

 

Kinda felt the 'vibe' so i threw the boat out for a few hours this morn. Before work. Fished 7-10 caught 7, 2 on a buzzbait and 5 on a frog with a couple decent ones in the mix that weighed 3-4 and 4-9.

Season opened yesterday here - got out for a couple hours this morning from shore. Caught a couple on a Rapala Jointed Shallow Shad-Rap 07 in Silver Shad. Not big - but the 'bass drought' is over.

 

First one was about 11"-12"

 

Second was a little bigger - and something had chased it at some point and took a bite out of it's tail.

 

So for me...at least the season has started.

Tough sledding this morning after some rain came through overnight (and continued in brief patches during my first couple hours out).  I managed three in just under 5 hours; The best one (below) gobbled a senko and went about 2 and a half. So the parade of two-pounders continues (still haven't broken 3lb yet this year...where are they?).  Two others bit on a green pumpkin/purple Siebert Fogy.

 

1 hour ago, MIbassyaker said:

Tough sledding this morning after some rain came through overnight (and continued in brief patches during my first couple hours out).  I managed three in just under 5 hours; The best one (below) gobbled a senko and went about 2 and a half. So the parade of two-pounders continues (still haven't broken 3lb yet this year...where are they?).  Two others bit on a green pumpkin/purple Siebert Fogy.

 

Nice fish and Sweet rig 

Ten fish in 90 minutes this morning, then the bite seemed to really slow.  A weightless Zoom Magnum U Vibe Speed Craw did the majority of the work. Got a couple on a Max Scent Hawg, too.  Jig/craw just wasn't doing it for them today.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Pickle_Power said:

Ten fish in 90 minutes this morning, then the bite seemed to really slow.  A weightless Zoom Magnum U Vibe Speed Craw did the majority of the work. Got a couple on a Max Scent Hawg, too.  Jig/craw just wasn't doing it for them today.

 

 

Fishing it like a top water?

Landed this girl this AM on a white chatter on my “last cast” before leaving. Not a sniff on that bait in over an hour of trying it. Caught 3 on green pumpkin swim jig. Measured 20” and weighed 4.26. I weighed her twice because I swore she was pushing 6 lbs. huge head but just skinny I guess. Chatter has really proved to be a big fish bait for me so far this season. Two 4+ and a 3.5 to date. Just goes to show that an old dog can learn new tricks!

Never made it out today, between yard work and talking to my neighbor, who basically had my wife and next door neighbor in tears telling us the story of how his wife died from Covid 3 months ago. Very sad.
 

Hit a local boat for striped bass last night, after a few good reports. With 60-70 people on board there were 3 stripers, 2 blue fish.

 

And Me (and my son) like:

 

 

2 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

Fishing it like a top water?

The first few fish hit while I was buzzing on top, but once the sun got higher I was beating the bank, pitching it into really shallow water and basically deadsticking it.

A dude met my brother and me last night for an unexpected trip at one of the very few lakes open here for bass fishing right now. This shallow puddle is fed by runoff and its level is maintained by groundwater, so there's no flow through it. We measured temps between 66-68*. The southern side had a bazillion bluegill and pumpkinseed on beds, but no bass. I suppose they're done romancing at this joint.

 

The first 3 hours was an epic dinkfest, just like a party boat on a school.  They were so small that a 1 pounder was a nice upgrade. Finally, some decent ones came out to play. My buddy got his on a G2, then my brother's came on a fresh Lancotti Psycho Gill painted in Ferrari red. I had a good'n shake off a crank next to the boat, but found redemption when a loony swimbait eating Crappie nailed my Shellcracker G2. We probably should've stayed a bit longer and caught the wave, but 3 AM was tapout time for our 50-something crew.

 

It was a beautiful day in Central Massachusetts.

 

 

 

 

Today's tools:

 

One of my buddies from college lives out near Memphis, he comes back to east TN for a smallmouth fishing weekend twice a year, arriving Friday mid afternoon and leaving Sunday at noon

 

friday afternoon: 

we got some good info from @Jerminationon where to fish close to an access so we weren’t wasting time motoring. After a 1.5 minute idle with the gas motor, we put the trolling motor down and start fishing. On the first cast, my buddy hooks up with a nice smallie on a tube! I guess it’s going to be a good trip.....

 

I had small fish duty all of day 1, although I did manage to lose a fairly nice one on a jump. Even mister whiskers showed up to the party. My buddy got me a new spinning outfit on a 7’ rod, it was fun casting further than i typically do. No backreel on the new shimano reel, it was pretty funny a couple times when I was trying to flip the switch 

Day2: we had a third buddy joining us with fly gear, and we decided to hit the shallow rivers close to home. We drive up and the water on river #1 is 58 degrees at 8 am....... hmmmm.. 

 

action was slow, although the fly captured a couple nice drum and white bass. We got dink smallies and lots of skipjack, once again I couldn’t make a striper eat a skipjack for pretty much an entire day. As usual my buddy got the biggest SM of the day, a 16-17” fish I think. 

 

 We went up another river and found 70 degree water and more white bass and skipjack, maybe a few more decent smallies starting to show up. Right before dark my buddy is landing one, I get a phone call. When I check to see who it is, my line took off swimming fast. I set the hook and a pretty big SM jumps, then dives and I can feel head shakes, and those shakes resulted in the hook coming out ?. I’m guaranteed to get a bite when my fiancé calls but it usually ends with me catching the fish. I guess I should have answered this time! Haha. 
 

Day 3: 

we only have until noon to fish before my buddy drives the long haul back to Memphis after sitting in a boat for 22 hours or so straight of awake time. This is where the peaceful weekend fishing trip took a bit of a turn! We decided to get the shallow boat hooked up and try way up river. It was beyond shallow, we were driving down a shoal that was several hundred yards long and about a foot deep and dry docked the boat on a rock with the target fishing area in sight. It’s about 1/4 mile away still, maybe we can still make it. Well turns out someone is bank fishing down there in the distance. We decide to attempt making it back upstream of the ramp in case of more crashing. Well, there was more crashing. I kept losing momentum on plane in shallow gravel shoals. I bet I tried 6 different times and getting stuck in the exact same spot so I finally just started walking the boat upstream (barefoot, smart. Forgot river shoes). We finally get 2-3 miles above the ramp and start fishing. My buddy hooks up on a tube with this one

 

That bite somewhat died and we had wasted lots of time so we start drifting in the current reeling grubs/swim baits. I notice the boat is now leaking and I broke the prop! Heck we were lucky not to be stranded. 

Even though I played small fish catcher again, we then proceeded to catch all kinds of smallies in the short period of time we had left and my buddy got the biggest bass of the trip, just over 18” . We had a double or two and some

back to back cast action.