1 hour ago, Swamp Girl said:

Dang that Mark!

Mark is a good guy. Moved here from South Africa and is a machine with a shakyhead or C-rig. Our whole group is solid guys.

8 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@Bluebasser86, good finish but to me that gar is the star of the show! Holy smokes 

I really want to go down there just to try to target them. I hooked one in practice on a Cull Shad that was probably 10lbs (state record is just shy of 8), but it came off at the boat. I wouldn't mind having that state record. Unfortunately, KS recognizes bowfishing records as state records, and the current record was taken bowfishing.

1 hour ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Mark is a good guy.

 

That might be, but I'm on Team Clayton.

A few of the last weeks reports. The family and I went camping with my parents and a few other family members for Father's Day weekend. All I really wanted was to spend time with them and do some fishing. We had a great weekend, the boys spent a lot of time with my parents, playing with some of the other kids in the campground, and swimming. Mrs. Blue and I did a pretty fair amount of fishing. She had the hot hand on Friday. We were fishing the same bait, but I was catching dinks and walleye, while she was catching the quality fish.

I was catching tons of these on my Ned rigs.

Saturday, I took my dad out for a few hours and I finally caught a quality fish of my own.

Sunday, I went out by myself in my kayak to a local lake for a few hours because I finally got everything installed for the Livescope on my kayak and wanted to try it out. I didn't use it a lot but drove around and looked at stuff with it. The water was up in the trees and grass and I couldn't help myself.

Thursday, I went to a private lake with a friend of mine to really play with the Livescope more. I used it to find a brushpile and caught a fish out of it, that was exciting. I'd have never caught that fish without it. That's the kind of stuff I'm hoping to do with it. I caught a ton of fish, but not many bigger ones. Tons of jig fish, so that was fun. Had a pretty good bite early on with a Savage Gear Pulse Tail LB swimbait.

My biggest of the day was a glutton.

 

 

Friday I had a choice: go home and eat lunch alone. Or go hungry and go fishing during my lunch break. I chose the latter. One teeny tiny guy trying to eat a crank bait altogether far too big for him. And that was it. Didn't get food til dinner time at 6 PM. 

#worthit

 

Another good night with another limit. The night bass have been awfully consistent. Here's best five.

Got another one from the church pond but not THE one.

I got out for a few hours of fishing in the wee hours this morning. The first hour was a hot bite on my favorite weed flat, then the moon rose and it shut off like the flick of a switch. Managed a half dozen this size and a 2# saugeye.

 

I think I'm gonna make the hour drive down to my #2 lake tonight and see if I can get into some brown bass in the dark, then muskie after sunrise.

 

@LrgmouthShad: WOW!!! I see what you mean about fishing at night. 

On 6/19/2025 at 9:32 PM, BluegillsTightlines said:

I just feel like I'd have the same rotten experiences I've been having-- just not worth the trouble. It may take the fall season to save my fractured love for it.

I know the feeling - the dog day’s of summer (that’s August up here) were very slow for us last year.  Stay cool and try the magic first hour of the morning, before the heat gets up… followed by a nice nap in the A/C. 😎

3 minutes ago, The Baron said:

I know the feeling - the dog day’s of summer (that’s August up here) we’re very slow for us last year.  Stay cool and try the magic first hour of the morning, before the heat gets up… followed by a nice nap in the A/C. 😎

 

August was slow for me too. Our fishing is great right now, but I'm taking a break. Between fishing, gardening, and throwing toys for up to two hours a day for my pup, my right hand has weakened. So, I'm throwing toys with my left and staying off the water for a few days.

@LrgmouthShad

 

I didn’t want to deal with the opening day boat launch craziness, so I channeled my inner @Swamp Girl for our back lake bass opener.  I left home at 3am, did a 45 minute drive then a short canoe carry into a small lake that’s overpopulated with small bass.  I did one round of the lake from 4:45am until 7:45am when the humidity started - we’ve gone from wet cold weather, straight to a heat/humidity warning.😒

 

Anyway… the trip did not disappoint, and I caught 40 bass in less than 3 hours.  Biggest were a couple 16” and a 17”,

but you can see how skinny the fish are.  The 16”+ are actually the biggest I’ve ever caught in this lake, many are less than a pound.  I used a light topwater setup with a small black popper, and they just kept biting it so I never put it down.  Lots of bluegill snapping all over the lake and I caught a bunch of them too on my tiny #8 treble hooks.  I saw turkeys, several deer, watched two squirrels fighting so fiercely they fell out of the tree in a tangled ball, heard coyotes… and saw exactly zero humans. 👍🏻  I passed a couple small boat launches on the way home, both were packed with trucks/trailers half on/off the road, way over capacity for parking.🙄

 

I meant to make this trip last year, glad I finally did it.  I got my topwater numbers fix for sure, time to switch to a bigger boat and bigger fish.🤞🏻

 

 

@The Baron 40 fish in 3 hours? Sounds fun to me. Nice day, and beautiful lake!

@The Baron: You could have been skunked on that pretty pond and still scored just by paddling there. 

@The Baron 40 fish in 3 hours!  You were busy!

46 minutes ago, Bankbeater said:

@The Baron 40 fish in 3 hours!  You were busy!

Yeah, a few times I went 2-3 and even 4 consecutive casts with a bite.  And it was actually about 35 fish in about two hours - I lost 15 minutes after just the first fish when my lure caught a rod behind me on a back cast (been a while since I fished from the canoe, I forgot where I was) and blew up.  Then it took 1/2 hour for the last two fish, the bite slowed quickly but I wanted to hit the 40 mark before I quit.

 

Believe it or not, I recovered from this beauty! 😬😂

Really thought I was going to smack ‘em on one last night fishing trip this weekend, but turns out the bass were celebrating the solstice a day late with Modelos. Occasionally they would send ‘runners’ to go tap my bait, hang on it to a split second, and then drop it while I’m reeling in slack. I think they got a real kick out of it. No matter what bait I threw, they just wouldn’t eat it. Fortunately, I found a couple of antisocial bass that didn’t get the memo. They saved me from a skunk. Unexpectedly tough!

Took my pops out to the AEP today.  He’s a recovering Muskie angler who is learning how to target bass.  We launched early this morning to beat the heat.  I showed him how to wacky rig and let him have at it.  We did alright.  Caught 17 between the two of us.  
 

Pop’s best

My biggest

A fat panfish (longear maybe?) as a bonus

2 hours ago, bp_fowler said:

… He’s a recovering Muskie angler…

😂

I pitched into that bush area and pulled this guy out, plus another that didn't quite get the hook. The would have hit anything, I just happened to be giving the bladed jig a try.

 

Dark under the trees, that must be why they like it. It was the only shade around.

 

 

I had another that didn't get pinned with the jig, but was able to get this little guy.

4 hours ago, bp_fowler said:

He’s a recovering Muskie angler

That's possible? 😂 Good to hear. It gives me hope for the day when my back says we ain't doing this anymore. 

47 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

It gives me hope for the day when my back says we ain't doing this anymore. 

 

That's what ended my musky fishing mania, Tim.

50 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

That's possible? 😂 Good to hear. It gives me hope for the day when my back says we ain't doing this anymore. 

 

2 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

That's what ended my musky fishing mania, Tim.

Yeah, in all seriousness he’s at that point now.  Only it’s his shoulders that are issue.  
 

Throwing around Ned’s, tubes, senkos, etc is a heck of a lot easier on the joints than a 3 1/2 ounce Medusa.

That’s why I don’t even want to start musky fishing at my age.  A buddy offered, I declined.  I’m honestly not interested in throwing 1/4 - 1/2 pound baits all day, then doing figure 8’s to wrestle a beast into the net after a 6 second boat side thrashing.  I’d rather hear the braid sing after jacking a big largemouth out of the weeds. 😁

Got all small ones over the weekend. Fished up from downtown Knoxville Friday after work and the highland lakes upstream must have made it to full because they finally started moving water pretty fast and it was a chilly 63 degrees, making a thick fog in the hot air. Got 5 LM and a SM

 

and a pic of how fast the water was 

and a sunset

Sunday we went down to the lakehouse and I tried gar fishing in my canoe, the jet skis were just a little too constant for me. Not making big waves, I just gave up a tad too soon. I did see some gar but I didn’t like my

chances for whatever reason. Started bass fishing and got lots of hits, had probably 6-8 fish jump and toss the hook. I think they were all about 1-1.5 lbs but still would have like to catch them. They were grabbing the bait as I was reeling it back up to the canoe so I wasn’t getting the best hooksets. Did mange 3-4 bass and caught some green sunfish off the dock with a 3 wt fly rod, aquarium grade fish. I also got to watch the big bluegill and their spawning rituals, chasing each other off their round nests. They’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks right next to our dock