Finding a school of revved up white bass is so much fun.

Launch site, 6am: Foggy and dead calm.  What will the morning bring?

 

Found a few that liked what they saw in this Junebug Zoom Lizard with the chartreuse tail, when flipped into the arrowheads:

 

No need to hit the panic button there are still small mouth in the Tittabawassee. Launched from center and started north of gratiot and came back down. Nothing too big but, on the board finally for smallies mouth and no farm animals today 

 

. All came on a mojo rig with a 4 inch black and blue flake yum dinger. Couple bites on a jig and craw but, couldn’t connect . Last pic was the biggest smallie . The second pic looks like he’s been caught before. Landed about 8 total

Went smallie fishing for the first time last week. Spent a day and a half with my dad and Garrett Paquette on Lake St Clair and pretty much destroyed them. 12 hours total, around 70 smallmouth landed, 7 of which were over 4lbs!

Sorry about the rotated pics, not sure how to fix on mobile. Frustrating

Well I guess somebody has to follow @j bab‘s monster fish

 

got out after work and had a fun evening, a 18”+ smallmouth grabbed my lure in the first five minutes, a rage menace on one of @Bluebasser86 shakey heads (he didn’t jump off)

 

then my buddy got a nice spotted bass 

 

 

Then I tried some drop shotting with a little hand poured X zone bait and a herring grabbed that as soon as it hit the water. 

The smallies were biting it non stop as well, I need to drop shot more often 

On Monday, I lost what would have been my PB because I was too tentative setting the hook.  Last night, I went back to the same spot thinking, "I know where you live big girl."  I get there and cast a wacky rigged watermelon/red flake.  I hop it a couple of times and there it was...that telltale tap...tap.  I set the hook like I'm gonna rip her tail out.  DINK.  Well shoot.  Maybe she's still there but a little further up the log.  This time I toss a TR Zoom curly tail, watermelon seed.  Again, tap...tap...and this time....ANOTHER DINK.  Oh well, perhaps another day.

The evening wasn't a total loss.  I caught another 5-6.  This one was the best of the lot @ 2.51 lbs.

 

27 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Then I tried some drop shotting with a little hand poured X zone bait and a herring grabbed that as soon as it hit the water. 

 

me and my grandson hit the water around 6:30 this morning in the little johnny. he’ll turn 10 in a few weeks and he’s finally getting the hang of texas rig fishing. we’re primed for a great summer together on the water.

I’m not done fishing yet, but I got these 3 and another one that the picture was kinda bad on! I also hooked into a lot more, but today isn’t my best hook-up day. I’ll edit this post if I catch more!

27 minutes ago, TheBasslayer said:

I’m not done fishing yet, but I got these 3 and another one that the picture was kinda bad on! I also hooked into a lot more, but today isn’t my best hook-up day. I’ll edit this post if I catch more!

That’s what’s up ??

PB of 2021!!!!!! My scale was broken when I weighed it, so I’m gonna buy a new scale. I’m guessing it was 3 1/4 pounds! I hooked him on a Jerkbait and a swimbait, but I hooked and landed him on a small white spinnerbait.

Edit: not my PB of 2021 anymore.

With air temperature in the low 90’s and the water around 74 degrees I figured it was a good time to pick up the punchin’ rod. My best fish came when my bait was inhaled as it fell through the mat. I decided to use the net to keep her pinned as opposed trying to hand line her through the slop. Once on board it was like opening a Christmas or Fishmas present to see what ya got... in this case a big, thick and healthy 4.8lb delta bass 

Lil guy from the other night. Junebug pitboss on a 1/4oz tungsten weight. Heavy rain we had slowed everything down. 

Man there are so many fish at my Grandmas lake this weekend! My 3rd biggest Bass of the year, a 2.75 pounder on a Keitech!

I wasn't supposed to be done fishing but these spots tore all my worms and jig trailers to hell. Had a tiny travel box to fish from shore at my inlaws on gaston. Only took 30 min or so for these 3. Don't mind the blood... he was a faker. 

 

Idk how big spots are supposed to get but their aggressiveness is incredible. Every one I caught had 2 chasing it all the way to shore trying to rip the worm/jig out of its mouth. 

 

 

Our Bass season finally opened back up officially at 12:01 AM this morning. Work was a grind yesterday, then we watched our 2 1/2 year old grand daughter, AKA The Energizer Baby. Walked the pooch at 11:00 pm, and I was really done. The new couch in the man cave is oh so comfy, but I woke up after a 1/2 hour nap with some pop. I might do a night yak trip tonight, so I swore that I'd only do one hour, then split.

 

 I started off chucking a Nories Spoon Tail Shad, and got bit quickly. This guy fought hard and kept plowing down into the weeds, so I was sure it was a nice Pickerel. Turned out to be a hard charging 3 lb bass. A scrappy 2 lber shook off a Keitech Noisy Flapper as I went to lip it, and something heavy bit then let go of the Beast Coast Miyagi twice. Sigh. Called it a night at the hour mark. Feels good to be back. 

 

 

 

Caught and released these two today. 
 

 

Had to let ‘em go due to lake rules. Kept 5 others for filleting. Add to that another 5 dinks and I’d call it a pretty good day. 

The weather at my favorite bass lake in Mexico, has been exactly the same for the past 6 months.  I saw that there was going to be the first rain since November, so I  changed some work projects and went fishing for two days.

     The first day was Thursday, I got to the lake and hour before light and the sky was clear, 68 degrees, and no wind.  Not what I was expecting.  I fished a few favorite spots for nothing.  Marked a few fish on a drop off  caught a few small bass and one five pounds, on a deep diving crankbait.  I marked more fish there, but couldn't get them to bite.  I spent most of the day fishing trees, for small bass, and one giant that hit a spinnerbait, and got away.

     An hour before dark, the predicted storm was approaching so I went back to the the ledge. I made a long cast up on the flat with a deep diving crank bait.  I cranked one crank, and had a 5 pounder on.  Next cast same thing.  The bass I had marked in 12 feet of water earlier had moved up on the flat, in 5 feet of water, and were hitting.  I switched to a square bill and landed a four pounder.  The wind was blowing 35 knots so I put a bigger square bill on to cast further, and landed a 6 pounder with a huge tilapia tail hanging out its mouth.  After seeing the size of the tail, I tied on the biggest square bill I own on.  After that I hooked a bass between 5 and 6 pounds every time a drifted by that spot.  I finally had to stop, due to the wind, rain, lightning, and darkness.  One more drift, one last cast had gone on for way to long, but was worth getting wet, and scared.

      Camping that night was far from dry, but I was ready to fish at daylight.  I went back to the flat, but only landed one about 5 pounds further out on the drop in 12 feet of water.  I new there must be more fish there, but  couldn't get a bite on anything.  I tried crankbaits, spinnerbaits, worms, jigs not a single bite.

      I spent a couple hours of the flipping zoom old monsters into trees for smaller fish.  When I went back to the ledge I tried crankbaits again for no luck.  I was going to call it a day, but decided to try a Reaction Innovations Skinny dipper on a jig head before leaving.  First two casts were big fish, that got off.  Next cast was a 6.5 pounder.  Just to find out if it was the lure or timing, I dragged a Texas rigged worm, slowly over the drop, and a couple casts with a crankbait for no luck.  Put the Skinny Dipper back on and first cast landed a 6 pound bass.  I caught a couple more then the bite finally stopped and was getting time to leave, but before leaving I wanted to try an A rig.  I had never landed a fish on one, and  thought if they wanted one swimbait, why wouldn't they want 5?  The rod I have is way to light for and A rig, so the first cast resulted in a professional grade back lash.  Next cast was a 7 pound 23 inch bass.  I hooked a fish almost every cast for the next 20 min. then had to go home.  Just what I needed, an excuse to buy another rod, more A rigs, skinny dippers, and giant square bills.  I guess great days bass fishing are not free, but well worth the cost.  Biggest bass was 23 inches, 7 pounds, numerous 4 to 6 pound fish.

     

     

Had a tough morning on my in-laws pond and the bass just weren’t having anything to do with what I was throwing so I went inside until after lunch. High sun upper 80’s air temps, so what did I put on.  A whopper plopper of course.  There’s a shallow flat that drops off into deeper water and usually that’s where the fish hang out in the mornings.  But. It this morning.  So I tossed the WP as far as I could put across the flat.  Bam. 2.5lber first cast.  Then I caught 9 more in the next half hour all over 2lbs with the biggest pushing 3lbs. Pretty much every cast I was getting bit. So I went in and told my 9yo daughter I found where some bass we’re if she wanted to catch one.  She hadn’t really caught one over 2lbs before. So we went out and there cast it out and let her reel it in. And she caught this one. 2.98lbs. And then caught two more. She was pretty excited. 

Finally got out on the boat for memorial day weekend. Great trip for multispecies including walleye and crappies. My dad outfished me which bucked the trend of the past few trips. His hot bait was an xrap on a slow straight retrieve. He got a 19" largemouth (largies are rare in our lakes) and an 18.5" smallie. I only found a 17" smallie and 14" largemouth (pictured) plus a bunch of smallies under 14.

Unusually clear water this year, saw 2 muskies just cruising by.

I hopped onto a milk run of docks to check to see if they have set up under them yet since mid-June is usually when that happens here. Yep, they are where I thought they'd be!  I'm going out on the boat in the early AM to see what I can do with some really big baits for some bigger fish. I'm ready for some big girls after a somewhat disappointing spring for size.  I'm ok with taking the skunk at this point.

 

Addendum: So, my morning in the boat did not go as planned.  Of course, the wind had to blow 40 mph! Boat control was nearly impossible, and I lost two fish on dock break-offs.  Just one of those days....I did manage to boat this chunker, though, on a homemade jig with a Chigger Craw trailer. Possibly my best one of the year, which was what I set out to do.  Looks like some bass are just starting the post spawn feed, as you can see from her still-wounded tail.

Two days of pond hopping... Friday- nice big Pickerel! Saturday- some nice above dink status bass. Everything on a spinnerbait... Lots of rain and murky water.

I've heard all the hype about the new Strike King Hybrid Hunter. And I'm all for trying out new baits. They've been pretty hard to come by (tho admittingly I wasn't looking that hard), but I finally found one online about a month ago (3.5" version). 

 

I was out fishing last week and came up on an island that had a nice rocky point extending out from it. Up til then I had forgotten about the bait, but decided to throw it on to see what it's all about. 4th cast and a bass just killed it. Not like your typical crankbait bite. It was so aggressive I thought a muskie may have hit it.

 

I went on to catch a few more on the bait in the next half hour before I had to leave. Made me a believer. Went home and ordered a few more in different colors and one in the 3" size. You know how that goes. 

 

This thing is kind of obnoxious and has a really wide wobble. Definitely a time and place for it. 

 

 

Have been fishing a lot with little pictures. No 4lb giants yet but hit the big river today (it is still a little flooded) for 3 smallies. These are pics from a few days ago. GIANT carp in current are very fun. Took around 15/20min to land this beast. 

22 hours ago, Pickle_Power said:

I hopped onto a milk run of docks to check to see if they have set up under them yet since mid-June is usually when that happens here. Yep, they are where I thought they'd be!  I'm going out on the boat in the early AM to see what I can do with some really big baits for some bigger fish. I'm ready for some big girls after a somewhat disappointing spring for size.  I'm ok with taking the skunk at this point.

 

Addendum: So, my morning in the boat did not go as planned.  Of course, the wind had to blow 40 mph! Boat control was nearly impossible, and I lost two fish on dock break-offs.  Just one of those days....I did manage to boat this chunker, though, on a homemade jig with a Chigger Craw trailer. Possibly my best one of the year, which was what I set out to do.  Looks like some bass are just starting the post spawn feed, as you can see from her still-wounded tail.

UFO above your head in that top pic