Couple from the pond today on the Bourbon Blaze.

My last fish of 2021. Made it to 333 total for the year. 33 came in the last two weeks with the bulk from the kayak. Was happy with 1-4 fish from the bank and now I feel it’s a bad day if I get less than 4-5 from the kayak. What a game changer. 
First fish of 2022Ended up today with 10 total with 2 lbs being the largest. Ned did all the damage. Happy to be catching, but looking forward to getting onto a more power fishing bite. 

6 hours ago, Holetail said:

Happy to be catching, but looking forward to getting onto a more power fishing bite.

I’ve fished my entire life without ever getting onto a power fishing bite 

My wife and I live in a small condo community with a tiny central pond that has a bass. Yes, one bass that I know of. I try to catch him every January. He seems around one pound bigger every year, finally this year he's around 4 pounds.  (Can hardly wait to catch him in 6 years!)

 

That's a Gambler 10" worm, blue to match my glasses and shirt.

 

On 1/2/2022 at 11:02 PM, hawgenvy said:

My wife and I live in a small condo community with a tiny central pond that has a bass. Yes, one bass that I know of. I try to catch him every January. He seems around one pound bigger every year, finally this year he's around 4 pounds.  (Can hardly wait to catch him in 6 years!)

 

That's a Gambler 10" worm, blue to match my glasses and shirt.

 

You should name her considering it's likely a female.

1 hour ago, The Bassman said:

You should name her considering it's likely a female.

Big Blue.. ?

I was thinking Sheila

I got out this afternoon . Fished the North end of the lake . They  were biting the june bug speed worm well, but I only caught 1 on the retrieve. Also got several on the bama bug dinger.

Had a big fish swirl up and grab the worm 2 feet from the bank. She Somehow broke the line on the set. . Many of the fish I caught were tight to the shoreline. Im sure we’re in the early stage of the spawn. Theres a bed behind my jon boat at my dock!

Anyway… the last fish I caught looked like it had an old plastic worm sticking out of his mouth . But it turned out to be a little siren, which is an eel like thing with little arms.

I ended up with 12. Good afternoon overall.

 

Today I took my First fishing trip of the year and it was to the rock quarry. The TN river looks like peanut butter so I figured this was a good alternative. The water here is always gin clear, today it was muddy and quite weird in places, had a skim of purple dust on top. Melting snow made me think I should avoid the incoming water and fish the lower end but I walked right to the upstream end and set up shop. I bought a new reel today so I figured if nothing else I would test it out. I had a tiny fluke tied on , I knew I should try something darker in color but it was tied on so I dropped it under the dock I was standing on, expectation level .001 out of 10. As soon as I lifted there was a fish on the line, it jumped off. I proceeded to catch 6-8 of them, maybe more, and dropped a couple. Then my buddy showed up and fished for just a couple minutes and caught one with a Texas rig lizard. Not a bad hour! 

It was unseasonably warm Sunday morning and with no ice on the lakes yet here I ventured out to one of my favorite lakes in search of my first bass of 2022. Within minutes I was into my first one and two yellow perch. All fish on a small X-rap. I’m guessing water temps were high 30s low 40s. Felt real good wetting a line with 50 degree temps in January. The bass was a bonus

1 hour ago, jcjunior said:

It was unseasonably warm Sunday morning and with no ice on the lakes yet here I ventured out to one of my favorite lakes in search of my first bass of 2022. Within minutes I was into my first one and two yellow perch. All fish on a small X-rap. I’m guessing water temps were high 30s low 40s. Felt real good wetting a line with 50 degree temps in January. The bass was a bonus

Nice fish, love that lure too 

Thought I was done fishing for the near term but temps got above freezing this afternoon. So I gave it a go in spite of a lot of wind. Toss away hand warmers are indispensable. Caught seven though no bigs. I've managed to get out three of the first five days of the year but will have to wait a while now since we'll doubtless ice over after tonight.

Was able to get out on the 1st and the 4th and catch a few fish each trip to start off 2022. If the wind dies at all (been gusting 20-30 all day), we'll lock up for a bit and fishing will come to an end. Single digit lows and highs in the upper teens for the next two days. I'm good though and can hang until Feb. with hopes of getting a day of at least semi open water then. Never know in Indiana, but much better than many years back when we used to be locked out Dec-Feb most years with solid ice.

 

 

couple days after Christmas

12 hours ago, wrat said:

couple days after Christmas

Love the avatar. Grew up idolizing Ed Roth. Even had a Rat Fink model.

Ice fishing!!!!

 

No not that kind of ice, and not the kind in your drink either. What we had was the kind of ice that falls from the sky 

Boss man said to quit working as soon as possible, the weatherman was giddy and they said this was going to be a big snowstorm. The roads would certainly be ruined soon, schools had already been closed the night before. Nashville got a good bit of snow and it was blowing this way………….  
Every time they predict snow, we get nothing so I parked the work truck, grabbed the panfish gear and took the 4wd down to the river. We had a few flakes and some sleet, then mostly just rain. The water color was much improved from the shade of peanut butter it looked like on Monday. I was getting bit right away by bluegill on a 1/16 oz head with a chartreuse and green slider grub. A smallmouth, largemouth, and red breasted sunfish also decided to play, always pretty fun to get 4 species in about an hour. Thank you weatherman for your continued inaccurate forecasting and thanks to people like my co workers that continually believe them. Roads were fine, I stayed in 2wd and was passed by a minivan at high speed on the way home 

15 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Ice fishing!!!!

 

No not that kind of ice, and not the kind in your drink either. What we had was the kind of ice that falls from the sky 

Boss man said to quit working as soon as possible, the weatherman was giddy and they said this was going to be a big snowstorm. The roads would certainly be ruined soon, schools had already been closed the night before. Nashville got a good bit of snow and it was blowing this way………….  
Every time they predict snow, we get nothing so I parked the work truck, grabbed the panfish gear and took the 4wd down to the river. We had a few flakes and some sleet, then mostly just rain. The water color was much improved from the shade of peanut butter it looked like on Monday. I was getting bit right away by bluegill on a 1/16 oz head with a chartreuse and green slider grub. A smallmouth, largemouth, and red breasted sunfish also decided to play, always pretty fun to get 4 species in about an hour. Thank you weatherman for your continued inaccurate forecasting and thanks to people like my co workers that continually believe them. Roads were fine, I stayed in 2wd and was passed by a minivan at high speed on the way home 

All of my catches since New Year have come from spontaneous decisions to get out with very short notice on days that weren't supposed to be fishable. We're at 6* now with no short term prospects for open water. Sure glad I jumped. Wouldn't mind being in Tenn. now even though I'm sure it's plenty chilly.

27 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

All of my catches since New Year have come from spontaneous decisions to get out with very short notice on days that weren't supposed to be fishable. We're at 6* now with no short term prospects for open water. Sure glad I jumped. Wouldn't mind being in Tenn. now even though I'm sure it's plenty chilly.

You’re right, chilly but not 6! 

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Ice fishing!!!!

 

No not that kind of ice, and not the kind in your drink either. What we had was the kind of ice that falls from the sky 

Boss man said to quit working as soon as possible, the weatherman was giddy and they said this was going to be a big snowstorm. The roads would certainly be ruined soon, schools had already been closed the night before. Nashville got a good bit of snow and it was blowing this way………….  
Every time they predict snow, we get nothing so I parked the work truck, grabbed the panfish gear and took the 4wd down to the river. We had a few flakes and some sleet, then mostly just rain. The water color was much improved from the shade of peanut butter it looked like on Monday. I was getting bit right away by bluegill on a 1/16 oz head with a chartreuse and green slider grub. A smallmouth, largemouth, and red breasted sunfish also decided to play, always pretty fun to get 4 species in about an hour. Thank you weatherman for your continued inaccurate forecasting and thanks to people like my co workers that continually believe them. Roads were fine, I stayed in 2wd and was passed by a minivan at high speed on the way home 

I love it! That reminds me of the guy on “ Creek fishing Adventures “ that’s in your area….

I just got back to work , but my owner at work gave me an extra paid day off on tuesday because I had worked a couple mornings on 2 days I was supposed to be off. My last  post in this thread shows the results of being off that day…

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Ice fishing!!!!

 

No not that kind of ice, and not the kind in your drink either. What we had was the kind of ice that falls from the sky 

Boss man said to quit working as soon as possible, the weatherman was giddy and they said this was going to be a big snowstorm. The roads would certainly be ruined soon, schools had already been closed the night before. Nashville got a good bit of snow and it was blowing this way………….  
Every time they predict snow, we get nothing so I parked the work truck, grabbed the panfish gear and took the 4wd down to the river. We had a few flakes and some sleet, then mostly just rain. The water color was much improved from the shade of peanut butter it looked like on Monday. I was getting bit right away by bluegill on a 1/16 oz head with a chartreuse and green slider grub. A smallmouth, largemouth, and red breasted sunfish also decided to play, always pretty fun to get 4 species in about an hour. Thank you weatherman for your continued inaccurate forecasting and thanks to people like my co workers that continually believe them. Roads were fine, I stayed in 2wd and was passed by a minivan at high speed on the way home 

And here I thought it was only Chicago land forecasters getting paid to be wrong 99% of the time ?. All kidding aside my boss in residential would take us out to breakfast and if it blew over we would get on it if not we’d punch list a couple previous built houses. Commercial carpentry the company I worked for they didn’t care what the weather was, their was always something to work on. Just got back last week from Christmas break in your beautiful state, reading your posts is making me jealous ?

We got a nice break in the weather after around 18" of snow last week, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take Pops out for his 77th. Started out as an unexpected trout fest but fortunately we eventually got into some bass.

 

First fish of the day for the birthday boy.

 

I wish it had been the other way around, but while he was catching infrequent dinks in the creek channel I got into some nice ones with a 2.8.

 

 

Finally got into a school with a few nice spots that wanted a Ned.

 

Caught this 7# cat in the same area on a Ned... thought it was a nice bass until the endless headshakes started.

 

His only bass of the day and had him long arm that b-day bass like a big dog while tucking his other hand and thumb way back. Went from 12" to a 2 pounder just like that.  

First fish of ‘22. Healthy chunky fish too

I only got 3 bites today (2 I believe from the same fish) in like 6 hours but one of them was sure worth it! I was in my buddy’s boat, the air was about 21 degrees when we launched. I boated a small fish early with a damiki armor shad, then things went quiet for some time. After getting somewhat lulled to sleep, I got a hard hit. I had my drag loose from catching bluegill and perch the day before. Between that and being half asleep, l lost that one. I locked my drag down and cast right back out to the same spot and got slammed again. This time I set hard and hooked the fish, then clicked over to backreel and enjoyed the fight. When it first jumped we both swore it was 2 feet long, I was shaking like a leaf. Once I got the fish out of the net I realized it wasn’t quite as huge as we expected, but still a beauty. 4.34 lbs and about 20.5 inches. Got some shakey release video, I had fish slime all over my phone and thought I would drop it for sure. 

 

 

That’s a biggun! Definitely worth freezing your butt off for six hours !

That’s a stud!