Another solo canoe fish this morning.  I slipped into a small lake, only to find out I came ill equipped.  I was geared up to frog fish, flip Texas rig, do topwater and one spinning rod.  Turns out this little lake is a dual fishery, offering great smallmouth fishing.  After frogging my way out to open water with no takers, I picked up two back to back on the first 14-16ft. deep weedbed, using a wacky rig.  The first was a decent smb, then next cast a good lmb.  I was excited for what was to come, but found out via calls and texts from a buddy that I was geared for the wrong species and the wrong lake conditions.  I made the most of it, catching a couple smaller fish on my TR, then unfortunately lost a good smallmouth on a spook, but that bite was really slow.  I went back to the wacky and caught a few more before I had to go.

 

I’ll be back to this little spot… better prepared to catch smallmouth.?

I was on vacation the July 4th week in Orlando Florida with family and friends.

 

I made sure to book a guided trip for Bass. My son and friend, Frankie and I had a great time and caught lots of Largemouth in the 2-3 pound range. My son also caught his first Gar and a Pickerel. Those things followed me down to Florida.

 

 

Proud papa day. My son caught the most fish and the most species. I ended up with the least amount of fish but I caught the biggest. It’s usually the other way around. We had a great day.

SMALLMOUTH
 

I don’t care that they are tiny!! First Missouri bass for me 

15 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

SMALLMOUTH
 

I don’t care that they are tiny!! First Missouri bass for me 

Nice smallies!

 

I beat you in the tiny category today

 

I pulled my plastic worm into the boat and something felt weird about it. It was slightly quivering. Turns out a fish was holding onto the tail 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

37 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Nice smallies!

 

I beat you in the tiny category today

 

I pulled my plastic worm into the boat and something felt weird about it. It was slightly quivering. Turns out a fish was holding onto the tail 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s an aggressive little bass! ? 

No fish tonight unfortunately but It sure was nice out after dark. I was trying new technique (big swim bait around docks). 
 

 

Yesterday was pretty epic.  The winds were so calm we were able to slip the canoe into Lake Ontario, for much better access to a spot I found while shore fishing.  The smallmouth were there and I did very well on a tube jig, fishing the transition area where rocks slowly change to a sandy bottom with some patchy weeds in about 5-15ft. of water (casting in and fishing from shallow to deep).  We caught good numbers and a couple double headers.  Best of the morning was 4lbs on the nose and I beat it by an ounce in the afternoon.  You can rest assured we’ll be back again whenever the conditions permit!

Fished a creek from the kayak Saturday. Started my morning with one of my more surprising catches I've had, a drum on a buzzbait.

It was a good while before I got a good bite, Ol' One Eye mushed up on a homemade flipping jig in a laydown and just sat there chewing on it.

My plan had been to go way to the back of this creek but a huge tree had fallen down across the creek. On my way back through where I caught the first good one and got an even better one on a baby brush hog.

It's been blazing hot here with very little rain. Water levels are very low, and in these shallow puddles here that's never good. Saturday afternoon we got blitzed with heavy rain for about an hour, so that was welcome even if it did nothing to quell the humidity. However, hard rain usually screws up the fishing here for at least a few days. I imagine the fast influx of lawn pesticides and fertilizer from nearby residences ringing these lakes have some negative short-term effect. Add in the heavy road salts used during this past winter and that can't help either. Whatever the reason actually is, heavy rain usually kills the bite here. But with heavy cloud cover and a waning full moon, what does a boy have to lose?

 

As usual this type of weather pushes everything way offshore where there's a bit more depth, and that's a problem in a no-boats lake. The shallows get so hot, and the algae chokes them off, so I brought my longest rods to get baits way out there. I worked short first anyway, just in case, but it was dead water as expected. Chucked a 6" BPS Stick-O in Sungill as far as possible towards deeper water until I felt a good number of bluegills pecking at it, then decided to camp on that spot. Switched over to big wakes, but nothing doing. Nothing on slow sink glides. Nothing on a heavy swim jig. Nothing on slow rolled soft swim baits either.

 

Tied on a Project Z weedless chatter bait/diesel minnow, slung it as far as I could, snapped it through a weed clump, and got hit instantly. I finally felt like I'd found the zone, but then the rain came in again. I was already soaked through with sweat from being in my chest waders in this heat and humidity, so getting wetter wasn't an issue. Started with a dink, but upgraded to a solid 4+ chunk that went nuts and stayed nuts trying to unhook the choked chatter bait, and to get a lock on the scale. Quickly followed up with a spawned out but really charged up 5-7. Both bass hit hard at the end of my longest casts, then fought like crazy for every inch. It was awesome. For a moment there, with stars in my eyes, I thought I was on a new PB with the bigger fish. It dug so hard, but not this time. Who hasn't been there?  Just like the previous fish, this one choked the bait. I had my entire XL fist inside its mouth in order to remove it, but no blood with either thankfully. After an extended-release period, I thanked them kindly, then both swam off strongly back towards the deep.

 

 I was the only idiot out there in the middle of the night fishing in the rain with lightning projected in the forecast, but I had a quick 2 hour blast, and I didn't get electrocuted. Good stuff.

 

 

15 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

It's been blazing hot here with very little rain. Water levels are very low, and in these shallow puddles here that's never good. Saturday afternoon we got blitzed with heavy rain for about an hour, so that was welcome even if it did nothing to quell the humidity. However, hard rain usually screws up the fishing here for at least a few days. I imagine the fast influx of lawn pesticides and fertilizer from nearby residences ringing these lakes have some negative short-term effect. Add in the heavy road salts used during this past winter and that can't help either. Whatever the reason actually is, heavy rain usually kills the bite here. But with heavy cloud cover and a waning full moon, what does a boy have to lose?

 

As usual this type of weather pushes everything way offshore where there's a bit more depth, and that's a problem in a no-boats lake. The shallows get so hot, and the algae chokes them off, so I brought my longest rods to get baits way out there. I worked short first anyway, just in case, but it was dead water as expected. Chucked a 6" BPS Stick-O in Sungill as far as possible towards deeper water until I felt a good number of bluegills pecking at it, then decided to camp on that spot. Switched over to big wakes, but nothing doing. Nothing on slow sink glides. Nothing on a heavy swim jig. Nothing on slow rolled soft swim baits either.

 

Tied on a Project Z weedless chatter bait/diesel minnow, slung it as far as I could, snapped it through a weed clump, and got hit instantly. I finally felt like I'd found the zone, but then the rain came in again. I was already soaked through with sweat from being in my chest waders in this heat and humidity, so getting wetter wasn't an issue. Started with a dink, but upgraded to a solid 4+ chunk that went nuts and stayed nuts trying to unhook the choked chatter bait, and to get a lock on the scale. Quickly followed up with a spawned out but really charged up 5-7. Both bass hit hard at the end of my longest casts, then fought like crazy for every inch. It was awesome. For a moment there, with stars in my eyes, I thought I was on a new PB with the bigger fish. It dug so hard, but not this time. Who hasn't been there?  Just like the previous fish, this one choked the bait. I had my entire XL fist inside its mouth in order to remove it, but no blood with either thankfully. After an extended-release period, I thanked them kindly, then both swam off strongly back towards the deep.

 

 I was the only idiot out there in the middle of the night fishing in the rain with lightning projected in the forecast, but I had a quick 2 hour blast, and I didn't get electrocuted. Good stuff.

 

 

You, my friend, are a NY monster. Awesome

I gave the spinning gear a rest this morning. My BC tackle has seen very little use this year but a pea soup bloom had me thinking that a bladed jig would be a good choice today. Enjoyed some good action including this one being the largest, just shy of 4 lb.

I've been catching mostly catching dinks lately.  (we call them nubbin's around here)  It's been a month since I caught a 5 pounder.  I was pleased to catch this 3 pound 3 ouncer Sunday morning.   It gently sucked in my devils horse, but fought like heck.  It walked on it's tail a BUNCH trying to throw my lure back at me.   

 

Hit up little crystal In Montcalm county Michigan.  
I left work at 6 am and I was fishing by 7:15.  Took the first decent and 2 smaller  bass on a spro silver and olive little John DD 

 

finally decided to fish a Carolina rig.  So I pulled out my old 7ft lighting rod and put it to good use.  I picked up a nice large mouth and then 2 smallies.  The 2nd one was a dandy smallie. I was using a Berkley maxx scent GP tube with 1/4 oz thungsten wieght on the Carolina rig.
 

these were the  First small mouth I have taken out of little crystal.  We have had such a mild summer that the smallie are very shallow still. The bigger smallie was caught in 6ft of water at 12pm 

I have the sneaking suspicion that this is a meanmouth bass. Can anyone confirm or deny? 

16 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

I have the sneaking suspicion that this is a meanmouth bass. Can anyone confirm or deny? 

My first guess is smallmouth 

smallmouth

Huh! Okay then. That guy had an appetite then. Ate a 9” worm. Was fishing around for largies

I had a chance to hit one of the best big bass lakes in our area with my son in law, so even though the brutal sun was high over bluebird skies, and the heat was blistering, we had to give it a go. It's really grown in since I'd been there in the spring, so there were a bunch of juicy spots to pick through. Good thing because the Striker was on the fritz. Couldn't get it working. The water felt like it was 85, and with only 4 hours to zip around 70 acres on an 8ft Sundolphin with a MinnKota 30, we decided to stick to fishing cover. Too bad because I was all set for deep cranking.

 

They were tough to find though. It wasn't until the last 1/2 hour or so after we'd pulled into the last big cove on our way back that we were able to find some action. We didn't see a minnow or get a nibble in the rest of the lake, but this cove was loaded. We knocked off about 10 smalls before we had to go. It's such a beautiful lake, it was great just to be out there. I would've loved to hit that particular cove during the next overnight. I would've anchored on it, but this wasn't in the cards. Too bad because I know the jumbos would've come to eat eventually.

 

Stopped up at a local wading spot on the way home afterward to meet a wading pal, and hoped for an upgrade, but just got a few more scrappers. My wading buddy snagged a gill in its head and got one dinky dink bass. Oh well. Maybe next time. Gotta be in it to win it, and it's always good to hang with the bros.

I finally got time to post some fish pics from the weekend. I got up Sunday morning and my daughter wanted to go fishing with me, it’s not everyday when my 15 year old wants to go fishing lol. She was the superstar of Sunday, handed me my butt on a plate. I gave her a wacky rig she was off and running she caught 6 or more bass on this. Her biggest was 1.70lbs, followed by a 1.50lb and more smaller ones after that. I was throwing the 1/4oz dark sleeper and caught some perch, crappie and a tiny bass. I got the biggest fish of the day a 2.86lb one and another tiny one. Yesterday I caught this 1.76lb one on a drop shot.

Yet another day of crushing heat and humidity was upon us, so I waited until dark to walk my pooch. It was one of those walks where she needed to sniff every single blade of grass she caught a scent on, so it went on and on and on. I was ready to go after we got back home, but made the mistake of plopping down on the couch for a quick minute. When I finally woke up I only had about an hour before a shiny half moon would creep up over the eastern tree line and totally kill the bite. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, so that was going to happen. I booked up to a nearby puddle for a quick wade.

 

They gave my usual stuff the finger, even my trusty black/blue Project Z/Diesel minnow chatter bait. When it was still at its darkest, a 70mm wake and a spook got no love, but I tied on a Shellcracker G2 anyway for a Hail Mary pass hoping its bigger splashes might draw some in. I got what I wanted, then the moon came up and locked them down. I was smarter than usual this time and tap danced on outta there.

 

8 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

@Deleted account pm'd me the same selfie! I feel so betrayed...sniff...

Nothing more fun then ? fishing

 

8 hours ago, PhishLI said:

@Deleted account pm'd me the same selfie! I feel so betrayed...sniff...

 

Now I gotta go get checked for Monkey Pox...

Where would a bass be waiting to eat a rat? Right below a low water waterfall seemed like a good spot. This one seemed to really like (hate?) the FishLab rat when it came over his head, really smashed it.

Then this little champion pulled it down.