@ol'crickety it's the only bait that's getting consistent bites. Not even The Mayor is getting the job done consistently. My favorite soft plastic, a Texas-rigged stick bait, has been less than useless, and I can't even get bit on my go to hard bait: the Rebel Wee Craw. But that old number five just doesn't quit. 😎

 

An oldie, but a goodie. 

@IcatchDinks:

 

The greatest two days of my angling life, numbers-wise, were with a Mepps. I caught more than 500 smallies on that one lure in two days. I pinched the barbs to shorten my release time and didn't even bring most of them into the canoe, releasing them in the water so I could catch a couple hundred more. Come the third day, I slept late and mostly lazed to recover. Their average size was 17 inches. Bonkers bass! 

 

So, yeah, I have a thing for Mepps and Mepps men. I wish I could use my Mepps here, but it's just too weedy. I spend most of my time pulling weeds off the hook.

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

I have a thing for Mepps and Mepps men

@IcatchDinks I think she’s hitting on you 😍

27 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

@IcatchDinks I think she’s hitting on you 😍

 

too bad. I'm already taken. 😄

 

 

Fishing with the BR crew definitely let me see some different baits than I’m used to. Pat throwing poop baits, creature baits on drop shots, tricked out buzzbaits, flukes, and more. ICatchDinks throwing mepps, that craw crankbait, other Northern creek finesse. FishTax throwing a mini swim jig. I like to think that my bait selection was very ‘Texan’.

I don't fish this lake much. It's always covered with stuff, but it's only 12" deep in it's deeper parts so often, punching through the mat produces nothing. But occasionally I'll hit it, and I've caught some decent ones there in the past.

 

Pocket Frog

 

Saw this but didn't catch it.

 

Lizard for this guy.

 

Not sure about this, hybrid warmouth?

 

 

Private Lake here, trying out a vintage pack of power worms.

 

 

 

Fat Albert on a ball head jig. I've never fished them that way.

 

This is at my heavily pressured local public lake. The worms are working there too. The first 2 are right off the main office in a cove that gets hit a lot, and the first one is on the stump that always gets hit by everyone. All 4 in the same day was not bad at all for this lake along the shore. They like this color. All where split shot.

 

 

This one is in another cove, that's not as heavily pressured but I'm sure it gets it. 2lb1oz, fat, and a fighter!

Ya can't see it, but there was a shad tail barely sticking out of the gullet.

 

This one came off a stump that is in a small creek that runs into the lake. It's about 6 foot wide at this point. Probably pound and a quarter, and was a fighter.

 

9 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

I like to think that my bait selection was very ‘Texan’.

A kid I'd known since kindergarten moved away at the end of 4^th grade. Angelo was as Brooklyn-Italian in his speech as it gets. Dis, dat, deese, etc. Ya know. Like a mini Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos. He came back one day to visit while I was in 8^th grade, and it turns out he'd moved to Texas. He was dressed like a cowpoke and now had a cartoonish southern accent right out of an episode of Hee-Haw.

 

Texas can change a boy. Don't change, LMS.😁

30 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

Texas can change a boy. Don't change, LMS.😁

Put me next to the man I was 10 months ago and they are not the same person. 

2 hours ago, Bazoo said:

Not sure about this, hybrid warmouth?

 

Not a hybrid, just a standard Warmouth.

Another good July windy bank fish

Russell Dam on Savannah River North end of Clarks Hill

Still stuck shore fishing, but finally broke the bass-drought.

 

Ya - it's only a pair of 13oz fish...but it's BASS.

 

Missile Baits Warlock shakey head in 1/8oz GP with Zoom Finesse Worm in GP-Magic.

 

Think I found my new shakey head jig - these stand up much better than the Owner Ultrahead I had been using.

On 7/15/2024 at 3:49 PM, AndrewJ said:

Thanks I appreciate it.  If you go back about 5 years I am in this post a few times.  Took a break from posting and now make videos for youtube.

here they do dye the water because of safety of fishes inside from predators like eagle and falcons and ETC...

The pier I usually focus on when it's real hot or real cold out is still submerged, you can see the end of it sticking out of the water in the photo. A couple more feet to go. Nice to get this view again though. Caught a few decent crappies and a bunch of white bass but the LM still elude. Only two since May 30. Not that I've been trying, but it's still up there with the worst droughts I've ever had. Need it to end soon, ideally in a big way.

On 7/17/2024 at 5:58 AM, ol'crickety said:

Your pics depict a magnitude of weeds that make me now feel like I'm fishing clear, blue water.

Those pics were of water that's at least fishable to a degree. Here's a shot of that lower lake that I gave up on. Looks like frogging paradise, and fish try, but they can't bust through the canopy of tightly overlapped Lillies and pondweed to get it. I've never seen it this dense. The upside is that this year's hatch of bass fry should be safer from predation than in years past, and mature resident fish have a refuge from poachers with no way to fish live bait under a bobber. Lemonade.

@PhishLI: Wow! It's like the pickerel rush I saw last week:

 

 

I know there were bass in that pickerel rush. I heard them feeding, but there's no way I'm casting in there. I leave that to anglers who know how to punch through weeds and can stand with big @T-Billy muscles to winch them out. I know my limitations. 

Got on a few in 100 degree heat. Brutal conditions but I had the lake to myself. Got 3 on a jig, one on a Magdraft. Biggest went 4 even on the jig. Lost one I think was bigger fishing a tiny klash out deep.

 

 

I snuck out this morning before work, mostly to test a new rod I bought yesterday for my dedicated deep cranking setup (Lew’s 7’6” MH/moderate “Perfect Crankbait” Rod with a Shimano Curado DC 151 and 14# FC sniper).  That said, I started out at dawn with a Whopper Plopper and caught a few smb/lmb, one monster rock bass and a 3#-ish pike.  The first lmb (in photo) was bleeding so I put him in the livewell for 15 minutes, after which it appeared to have stopped.  He was harder to get out of the livewell than he was to catch in the first place - very feisty and swam off immediately.🤞🏻

 

Then I got to cranking over mixed coontail and sparse weeds in 14-15ft. of water off a flat.  Am thrilled that the setup will bomb cast a country mile.  Caught a 2.5# lmb on my third cast, which made my morning.  I moved to an offshore hump and fished the ledge where it falls from 10-30ft.  I another 3 lmb, and a pike.  One of the bass came in with 4-5 buddy’s chasing him, but that was my last bass.  I’m quite happy with the new cranking setup, especially with the rod for $100 CDN. 👍🏻

8 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

I know my limitations

Me thinks you underestimate yourself. Just keep all the steady pressure on 'em you can muster with that 766. You'll do better than you think. 😉

On 7/17/2024 at 7:16 AM, IcatchDinks said:

Nabbed a couple more today. The Mepps #5 Black Fury is the most productive bait this week. 

 

 

 

Also, something ripped the tail off my Mepps. Felt a big thump, then nothing, and when I got my bait back, the tail was gone. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

 

The orange Black Fury is one of my all-time favorite lures, since i was a kid.  I always find it a little hard to target bass specifically, though, because everything in the river wants to eat it.

10 minutes ago, MIbassyaker said:

everything in the river wants to eat it.

 

Agreed. Including logs, submerged cover, grass, weeds, the river bottom, and rocks. 😆 

 

I've never minded bye-catch, though. I'll be thrilled if a pike or some other fish wants to hammer my bait. 

11 hours ago, PhishLI said:

Those pics were of water that's at least fishable to a degree. Here's a shot of that lower lake that I gave up on. Looks like frogging paradise, and fish try, but they can't bust through the canopy of tightly overlapped Lillies and pondweed to get it. I've never seen it this dense. The upside is that this year's hatch of bass fry should be safer from predation than in years past, and mature resident fish have a refuge from poachers with no way to fish live bait under a bobber. Lemonade.

There is a local place that gets like that. It's decent fishing other times of the year, partly because a lot of people discount it.

River float.

 

A pretty-popular five-mile stretch that gets a lot of tubing, canoe and kayak traffic on weekends, but today the only other person I saw was one guy fly-fishing.

 

I have never seen the water lower or clearer here -- bottom visible everywhere, mostly 1-2 feet deep the entire way, with an occasional 3ft hole.  I found myself passing areas where I was sure there had been deeper pools in the past, and wondered what happened to them -- surely it wasn't always this shallow? And I realized it was probably a little deeper my previous visits, but also not as clear, with the bottom simply less visible. 

 

It was a little intimidating, to be honest, so I downsized, and swapped out a whopper plopper for a tiny torpedo, and a 5" senko for 4".

 

And with that, the dink-fest was on.

 

After my eighth or ninth 10-11-incher, I thought, "well may as well get a picture of one in case these are all I catch":

 

The next fish was finally a satisfyingly-sized 16":

 

...and then it was back to the dinks, one after another, until take-out, 27 in all.

 

Oh, and a few of these guys, who can virtually never be avoided:

 

Predatory birds were also out in force, not passing up such a feeding opportunity with the low, clear water. I saw an osprey, at least two, possibly 3 eagles, several kingfishers, multiple blue and green herons. 

@MIbassyaker: Cool trip report with great photos. Thanks!

I have not been posting but still catching fish when I get the time to go fishing. 2 biggest ones out of 90 minutes plus 15 plus smaller ones. All on a wacky rig.