8 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Another giant crappie, @Team9nine, and ICD scores!

Took me way too long to figure out what "ICD" meant. Lol

23 hours ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

@deep  I really dig your style, you seem committed to the big swimbait.  Wasn't around when you were posting before.     I haven't found anything in Bass fishing that rivals catching them on big swimbaits.   Pure adrenaline from the moment they eat. 

 

That last fish is a beautiful freak show.....congrats.    

 

Thank you!

I am not committed to the big swimbait. I love jerkbaits and rats and frogs too. The last several years, mostly because I don't get to fish very often, when I do get a chance, I fish what I like to fish and what I want to catch a fish on that particular day. If I catch a fish or two, that's great; but if not, that's fine too. I literally fished 7 times last year, and caught 6 bass in all.

There was a time when I was committed to the 8" or larger swimbaits. About 10-12 years back. I fished swimbaits a lot, like almost everyday. I got skunked a lot too. I also caught a lot of big fish. Mostly walking the shorelines of small public highland reservoirs. I had good teachers though, mostly folks from SoCal, and a few from other places.

I still retain most of the knowledge. Just don't have the time/ opportunity to apply them on the water. And that's fine with me too. I'm just glad that I fished a lot when I had the chance to do so.

You know something’s out of whack when @Team9nine is posting bigger crappies than most of the largemouth in this thread.

10 hours ago, PhishLI said:

Last night was odd for a few reasons. At this particular spot, and at this particular time of year, I usually start on the northeastern shoreline because that's where the pads come up first. The entrance to this lake is on the southwestern side and I'll fly right through it. However, every spot I briefly lit up with my headlamp on the way over was loaded with bluegill, so I had to stop. Strangely, the bluegill were mixed in size, from very large to very small. I've never seen this here. They're always found in like-sized groups.

 

Got a smack and missed on my very first cast throwing a Savage Gear pulse tail bluegill, but then I couldn't buy a sniff, and I threw the kitchen sink at them while slowly working my way north. Spent the next 2 ½ hours blanking, it was getting late, and I was really starting to feel it in my back as I'm not quite in wading shape just yet. Nothing gets me in wading shape other than wading.

 

I finally booked over to where I should have started in the first place, on the eastern side, touched my toes a few times to try to loosen up, chucked the 6" 6^th Sense Trace floater, and finally found a willing eater on my third cast. Go figure. By then it was 12:30 am, and I need my beauty sleep more than ever, so I called it a win and boogied.

 

 

The one thing I'm jealous of you northerners about. I could never bank fish that late at night with the gators here.

 

1 hour ago, Team9nine said:

Got a break in between storms, so took advantage of a rare cloudy day for me. Started with topwater (Spook) over potential main lake spawning flats w/o a bite. Moved into a creek arm and was able to get a killer blowup on a shallow laydown. Never could duplicate that bite though. Picked off two deeper fish on Ned-type stuff…and one more crappie brushing the 3 lb. mark. That’s probably it until next week.

 

 

 

 

S L A B

5 hours ago, Aaron_H said:

The one thing I'm jealous of you northerners about. I could never bank fish that late at night with the gators here.

Then I'd recommend finding a spot without dinosaurs in it. For a number of reasons, night fishing provides a completely different rush. Between the darkness and relative silence, I'm just tuned in on a different frequency. Heart pounding and the shakes are ramped up during the hit, fight, and landing. It's electrifying really, and the closest feeling I've ever had to cracking my bike's throttle wide open at night on a deserted highway when I was young and insane. Alas, I'm much older now, and far less tempted to dare God with my life, but I can get that same buzz on the cheap by fishing in the dark.

35 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

For a number of reasons, night fishing provides a completely different rush. Between the darkness and relative silence, I'm just tuned in on a different frequency. Heart pounding and the shakes are ramped up during the hit, fight, and landing.

Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to it. Normally I'd be about six weeks out from going nocturnal right now, but this spring, who knows? Last August I added these guys into the night fishing mix. 

They up the excitement ante by a big margin. 

@PhishLI and @T-Billy are spot on. Plus, big girls are creatures of the night. I spent a lot of time this winter looking back at my 2023 catches and I noted that most of my biggest bass were framed in black.

 

 

4 hours ago, PhishLI said:

Then I'd recommend finding a spot without dinosaurs in it. For a number of reasons, night fishing provides a completely different rush. Between the darkness and relative silence, I'm just tuned in on a different frequency. Heart pounding and the shakes are ramped up during the hit, fight, and landing. It's electrifying really, and the closest feeling I've ever had to cracking my bike's throttle wide open at night on a deserted highway when I was young and insane. Alas, I'm much older now, and far less tempted to dare God with my life, but I can get that same buzz on the cheap by fishing in the dark.

 

Good luck finding that in Florida! 😂 I've seen decent sized gators in a spot of water smaller than my driveway. Any speck of water that's been there long enough to be worth fishing is gonna have gators in it as well.

My favorite 'night' to fish happens just before the dawn.  I set my alarm clock for 4 am starting in about July.  Topwater in the pitch black before the first rays of the sun are seen can put the fear of God into anyone.  It's spectacularly electrifying.  You feel all of what makes humans animals firing at once.  You get so tuned into the rhythm of what's happening around you at night.  It makes you a MUCH better angler IMHO.

Not sure I would consider getting up before the sun rises to be a "night" fishing outing.  Ya you might be out there for an hour in the dark but the majority of your time is still during daylight hours.

 

What @T-Billy, @Catt, and @PhishLI do is night time fishing.  They specifically set out in the middle of the night or just prior to sunset and fish the wee hours of the night.  That's raw.  I used to do it a lot when I was younger and walleye fishing.  We'd use lighted slip bobbers.  It was extremely effective.

 

I don't have the energy to be a night owl anymore.  It would really screw up my sleeping habits for a couple days too.  Sometimes I do start before it gets dark and then fish an hour or two after the sun goes down.  Still wouldn't specifically call that fishing at night time though.  Also, I generally do not have to resort to fishing in the dark because it doesn't get hellaciously hot here for weeks on end like it does down south.

I agree with @gimruis. I'm not a true nighttime angler. I launch at four in the morning and it's dark, but not for long. Still, in those brief, dark moments, I catch some of my biggest girls. 

 

@Pat Brown: Well described, Pat! It is spooky and thrilling. 

 

 

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

I noted that most of my biggest bass were framed in black

I can go back through decades of my big fish pics and find two common themes. The majority were either caught in the dark, or from cold water. Sub 55 degrees gets me excited. I've caught big's in about every condition, but those two factors definitely up the odds of connecting with a giant. 

I like to fish til 1 am in the late spring but that bite seems to get less good in the later summer!

36 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

I can go back through decades of my big fish pics and find two common themes. The majority were either caught in the dark, or from cold water. Sub 55 degrees gets me excited. I've caught big's in about every condition, but those two factors definitely up the odds of connecting with a giant. 

 

Tim, I've been struggling this Spring, as you likely already know, with water in the low forties at the surface. I'm guessing the water is upper thirties six to ten feet down, where I've caught a few, but boy, they make me work. They don't exactly "hit" the lure. The rod just gets heavy and in the canoe, they are so cold to the touch.

 

However, I'm not fishing big fish water yet because I stashed my canoe at the land I bought and that lake isn't a big bass lake, although I think it's on its way as the fish are an inch longer, on average, then they were in 2022.

 

Soon, I'll bring my lightweight canoe out of the woods when I stash a heavy, old canoe there and use my lightweight canoe to fish for big spring bass. 

 

3 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

I like to fish til 1 am in the late spring but that bite seems to get less good in the later summer!

 

You are brave, Pat.

It'll get easier as those surface temps start edging up closer to 50, @ol'crickety. 

Yeah the nighttime bite is always fun, starting around 10pm and fishing until 3 or 4am is a blast. Along with just being so darn peaceful, just you the water and animals of the night and the fish. There’s nothing quite like it, of course me going back to 3rd shift helps me stay up all night long. It has its pluses and minuses at times, but hey you have to make a living somehow.

35 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

It'll get easier as those surface temps start edging up closer to 50, @ol'crickety. 

 

I sure hope so. I'm averaging two bass a trip! 

1 minute ago, ol'crickety said:

 

I sure hope so. I'm averaging two bass a trip! 

I've done worse. 😉

38 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

It'll get easier as those surface temps start edging up closer to 50

 

I agree.  That's the critical temp I look for.

2 minutes ago, gimruis said:

 

I agree.  That's the critical temp I look for.

Things get more consistent and predictable once it tops 50 for sure. 

I’m back at a day job, Night time is sleepy time 

On 4/11/2024 at 1:09 PM, Jmurphy87 said:

Yeah the nighttime bite is always fun, starting around 10pm and fishing until 3 or 4am is a blast.

I can't tell you how many times where the clock ticked 1:00 am, our energy was flagging, but I would push us through until 2:00, and just like that the bite came alive. So many times, my wading buddy quits, and on the way out he always says, "send me pics". More often than not he'll get one or a few sent to his phone before he gets back to his driveway. The hot bite can turn on at night just like that and is often triggered by baits slapping down into the water. Find the right zone, which might only be 100 feet left or right, and that seems to call in groups who are competitive. Then it's one after the other.

1 hour ago, PhishLI said:

I can't tell you how many times where the clock ticked 1:00 am, our energy was flagging, but I would push us through until 2:00, and just like that the bite came alive. So many times, my wading buddy quits, and on the way out he always says, "send me pics". More often than not he'll get one or a few sent to his phone before he gets back to his driveway. The hot bite can turn on at night just like that and is often triggered by baits slapping down into the water. Find the right zone, which might only be 100 feet left or right, and that seems to call in groups, who are competitive. Then it's one after the other.

It definitely goes in windows for sure, but hey that’s why we are mobile and move spots when it dries up. But the knowledge of when to move only comes with time and experience. But it always definitely pays off in the end.

I wish I were brave and sturdy enough to fish through the night. When I've launched at 3:50 a.m., I hear bass feeding in all directions. Big galoomps when they hit the surface. 

It's been a while since I've posted. I've had too much going on to fish much lately, and when I did get a chance it's been a struggle. Finally caught a few in the past week or so. No big ones, but any fish is better than a skunk.

 

The fish on the left was caught on a day when my buddy and I caught 10. He caught a 4 lb largemouth, and a 3 lb smallmouth...which was his PB smallmouth! He was pretty excited, and I was excited for him. It fought like a beast. I think he may want to chase those brown fish more often now. 9 out of the 10 we caught that day were on rattle traps. Any color would do. Orange, red, silver, and gold worked. The LM in the picture was the lone fish caught on a TX rig.

 

The fish on the right was caught on an quick 30 minute bank trip that resulted in 3 fish. 2 small largemouth, and the smallmouth pictured. The smallmouth hit a trick worm like a train. I thought it was going to be a lot bigger, but I'll take it. Just glad to get to fish.